Spiritual Attacks.
Dec 22nd by Jon“Honey, do we own a thick, lightning fast Chihuahua or a freakishly large Black Russian Dwarf hamster?”
That’s what I should have asked my wife that afternoon when we both saw something huge and dark skitter from one side of our garage to the other. It wasn’t that big of a deal, it’s just that things in your periphery vision appear 92 times more terrifying than they really are.
And as much as I hoped it was a goth rabbit that preferred scurrying over hopping, the reality of the situation set in pretty quickly.
We had a rat in our garage and that rat, my friends, was tremendous.
So we bought some glue traps and some poison. Then we started anxiously cleaning the garage. We found the reason the rat came in to the Acuff house in the first place, bird seed. Well bird seed and a foam pool noodle. Those were the two things that rat had gone to town on. The first was for food. The second was probably an act of revenge, that rat hated pool noodles.
The next morning I got a call from my wife while I was in a meeting at work 20 miles away …
“There’s a huge rat caught on the glue trap. Are you coming home?”
This is probably the point in this story where I lose “hero husband” status.
“I can’t come home right now. I’m in the middle of a meeting and can’t leave.” I said.
“It’s a good thing you’re so freakishly handsome.” My wife said. She didn’t say that actually.
Instead she said, “AHHHHHHH the rat is screaming. He’s still alive and he’s screaming trying to get off the glue trap! AHHHHHH!”
And that’s when my wife just lost it. In later review of “the situation,” topical reference to the worst show MTV has ever made, I would come to theorize that the poor rat bore the brunt of all the anxiety we were feeling at that moment in our lives. Our daughter L.E. had just started kindergarten. My wife was leading a 15 person core group at a Community Bible Study. We were getting ready to release a book and then that black rat chewed his way into our lives.
A grandmother who lives next door came over and killed the rat with a garden tool. She later told me that every time she hit it, she asked Jesus to forgive her for killing one of God’s creatures. (Although someone on facebook commented that I should just turn my “man card” in, since I allowed a grandmother across the street to handle the animal business at my house, I’d like to point out that I was at work. Which is a shame, a dang shame.)
There are probably 37 different sermon illustrations in that experience, but the thing I found most interesting happened a few months later.
We found a roach in the garage and my wife turned to me and said, “We’ve never had so many bugs in our garage and we had that rat, I think this is a spiritual attack.” At first, I couldn’t tell if she was joking.
A rat? A roach? Minions of satan? Come on. Fire ants, those I can understand work strictly for Lucifer. I mean they have “fire” right in their names. But a rat?
The more we talked about it though, the more I thought she might be right, but I think as Christians we usually approach spiritual attacks in two wildly different ways:
1. We see everything as a spiritual attack.
Starbucks didn’t serve your coffee at the temperature you want? Spiritual attack! (People are actually asking for temperature specific coffee right now, they’re ordering 140 degree drinks as if their tongue is calibrated to tell the difference.)
2. We don’t see spiritual attacks in anything.
Your entire car engine falls out cleanly on the highway as you were driving to speak at your church and you found a pure black cobra wrapped around your bicycle when you tried to ride that instead, a la the Spirit Flyer book series? Just a coincidence.
Maybe I’m wrong, but most of the time I tend to fall into one of those two categories and ultimately I’m not sure either is right. But as I mentioned in post #666, rarely do my friends and I talk about stuff like this. So maybe today we can.
Where do you land?
What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard called a spiritual attack?
What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard called a coincidence?
Comments
Maybe you didn't have bugs in your garage because there was a rat eating them. Maybe there's a third option:
3. We see blessings as spiritual attacks 'cause they make us uncomfortable at first.
My husband and I are perfect for each other 'cause he leans more toward #1, and I lean more toward #2. Which makes for some interesting arguments sometimes. "Demon!" "Coincidence!" "Demon!" "Coincidence!"
Like someone already said, there's no guessing game involved here. You can pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you discern whether this is good old fashion "stuff happens" or whether the devil/demons are coming in to play.
The elderly lady that I do prison ministry with told me that my lost keys were probably taken by a little "demon". If I ever find that little guy, so help me……
I subscribe to the Screwtape Letters school of thought – Junior demon has a job to keep christians lukewarm and away from loving and knowing God fully – using many various means. Attack may fall into these means but many times he is far more subtle and still succeeds in taking away our attention and focus from God.
Love your slightly irreverent view of life and all things as God permeates it all – straight reliousity has never done it for me and I think God must know my sense of humour is warped and that is ok too!!
Wow, good topic. I definitely believe in spiritual attacks because, well, I've lived it. And nothing has proven the existence of the devil trying to disrupt my life as 2009. I have lived in LA for a year and a half. This last year has been hell. Six months out of the 12, I have slept on the floor of my office. That's not the warfare part. I have had entire days and weeks where LITERALLY nothing goes right. I'm on a shoot and within ten minutes, I crash a production truck, then I get a screw in my tire the next day, then I send a business email off to the completely wrong person, and then a perfectly fine paper bag carrying shoes rips as I finish putting a spare tire on my car and I put things back in the trunk. My friend was with me when the bag ripped and it wasn't the bag itself, but he knew everything else that had happened that week and this was just that last straw. And this all happened the same month that two of my debit cards with two different banks were compromised (and I am VERY careful with my security). You tell me if that's warfare or not. I saw it is, and here's why.
Day of the bag break was Halloween. My friend and I were going to Disneyland. I was having a miserable time because of the weight of everything from the last week. I could feel it on my shoulders. He was going through similar problems in life and, as we talked, I kinda sighed and the first thing that came out of my mouth was scripture. "Just remember that the Lord will restore the years that the locusts have ate."
Boom. Weight. Off. Shoulders. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't asking for it. I simply spoke scripture with authority to a friend to help him, and I immediately felt the demonic oppression shudder and flee. Never before had spiritual warfare been so real to me. It wasn't some magic saying that did the trick, it was pure and simple light and truth and power from above, called out in my faith.
I could share so many other examples from this last year, but that would require much more space. I hope this helps someone that's had a bad day that has turned into a bad week, month, or year as mine has.
Wow, good topic. I definitely believe in spiritual attacks because, well, I've lived it. And nothing has proven the existence of the devil trying to disrupt my life as 2009. I have lived in LA for a year and a half. This last year has been hell. Six months out of the 12, I have slept on the floor of my office. That's not the warfare part. I have had entire days and weeks where LITERALLY nothing goes right. I'm on a shoot and within ten minutes, I crash a production truck, then I get a screw in my tire the next day, then I send a business email off to the completely wrong person, and then a perfectly fine paper bag carrying shoes rips as I finish putting a spare tire on my car and I put things back in the trunk. My friend was with me when the bag ripped and it wasn't the bag itself, but he knew everything else that had happened that week and this was just that last straw. And this all happened the same month that two of my debit cards with two different banks were compromised (and I am VERY careful with my security). You tell me if that's warfare or not. I saw it is, and here's why.
Having grown up with missionary parents I definitely believe there are times when families do come under spiritual attack. Since I was little, every single time my dad has been overseas on a missions trip, the appliances at home break down – dishwashers, washing machines, computers – without fail. And one member of the family always gets seriously ill as well. I dont think thats just coincidence. My dad is involved in a lot of spiritual warfare at an international level so yea while I dont see EVERYTHING as spiritual attacks, I think theres a lot more going on spiritually than we realise alot of the time.
This is the scariest warfare I've seen. EVER. Good or bad? I cannot say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53PnVQm2rl4
The King is still with us. How can that be a bad thing?
I think the book of Job is such an interesting case of Spiritual attack because God allowed it to happen. He allowed Satan to mess with Job. Sometimes I think that God allows spiritual attack on our lives so that we remember him. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe It's just that our lives suck without God and when we forget him, things begin to go wrong. I know that for me when life gets busy it sometimes takes a spiritual, "steel toed boot to the head," to get me to wake up, pay attention, and remember that God needs to take back his throne in my life.
Keep in mind that "Satan" in the OT is not what he has become today–then, more like a prosecuting attorney than the epitome of evil, as he is today. There has been a considerable evolution over 2000 + years in how people have regarded him.
I'm curious as to what would make you say this. Can you explain more fully?
35 years + of biblical study, history, theology.
No, I meant explain the theology behind it. Show me!
I'm on page 3 of the comments. Nobody will ever see this. Demonic attack for sure!
I saw it. But didn't read it.
Since I believe that all bugs are a product of the Fall, I think cockroaches can totally be sprirtual warfare. I mean, the only "good" bugs are the ones that eat other bugs, so I find it difficult to believe that these horrid little creatures existed before sin entered the world. Therefore, whenever I see a cockroach scurry across the kitchen floor, I can almost hear it saying, "You know why I'm here? It's because you're a sinner! Hahahaha!"
Bugs serve an essential purpose: they are clean-up crew, pollinators, and/or food supply. As much as I detest cockroaches, I only kill them when they're in my home (in my face, under my shoe) because I know how necessary they are.
I don't know a lot about spiritual warfare but I do know that just now as I was making dinner there were some wild happenings. So, I'm mixing things up, thinking about eschatology and where Sasquatch fits in, and something – something!- said, "Looketh at what thou mixeth." And there it was – egg shell, sharp as a razor but blazing white like something really holy. "Woman, picketh it from thine meatloafeth." So I took my shoes off in case a potholder caught fire ans wasn't consumed, and removed the shell piece. I don't need to tell any of you this incident could have had global consequence, plus no one likes meatloafeth all that much, especially with eggshell bits. I, for one, am sure we were protected today.
I was diagnosed with a non curable disease about 3 years ago, its not life threatening, it just makes your life really uncomfortable. I was told I had chrones, basically my intestines eat them selves instead of the food. I was not a christian at the time and I was trying to set a new world record for amount of alcohol consumed. I had tones of stress in my life and i was heading, well more like full out sprinting down the road to destruction.
When i got the chrones I was told i couldn't drink any more I had to learn how to deal with my stress. I needed to clean up my life and start being healthy. I was extremely depressed for about 6 months. I broke up with my girlfriend, who was not the woman for me, and I actually started looking for God.
I spent some time in prayer when I finally gave my life to God and he told me two things, that he had allowed the chrones so that i would not destroy my self, and second that when the time was right he would heal me. 3 years later I sit in front of my computer healed. chrones free. There is no known cure and I am free of the disease.
Some people in my life said it was an attack or me paying for me sins, but in actuality it was God saving my life.
I think that attacks are more in the way you look at things then anything else. If you don't run to God and let him deal with it, it can become a full fledge attack in a big hurry. But if we look to God instead of at some obstacle, even if it is some sort of attack it is more a learning experience and something that we can thank God for.
Craziest thing I've heard called a coincidence: existence.
I have some interesting theological beliefs that are often not very popular. They do not lend me to believe that everything happening is completely controlled and/or ordained by God.
I confidently heard from the Lord to move our family to Texas. 20 miles away from our starting point our transmission goes out completey. A relative made a point in mentioning that this was a sign from God not to move to Texas. I said it was clearly evidence that our Isuzu Rodeo couldn't handle the U-Haul trailer we yolked to it.
We week later my wife's grandfather gave us a used minivan, in which we were able to fit our clothing and all of out kid's things. When we arrived in Texas with merely a fraction of our belongings, not even a bed, we got a king-sized mattress for free.
Okay, first off…..Spirit Flyer???? GAHHHHHH!!!! I thought I was the only one in existence who had read those!! I felt so alone, so utterly alone in a weird, bizarre, plentifully cobra-populated universe…
Two, your man card definitely needs turning in. As a 10 year old girl in the Philippines, I had startled rats run over my feet as I walked around my house, all the time. Run over my bare feet. With their little scratchy, moist rat paws…
Three, my laptop is under some serious spiritual attack, my friend. Both hinges cracked neatly in two, the hard drive crashed, the piece covering the right speaker fell off, and now it mysteriously shuts down of its own demonic accord with no one around. I think this calls for some prayer battling. Something along the lines of "Dear God, I can clearly see it is Thy Heavenly Will that I have a brand new MacBook. I trust in Thy Providence, O Lord…
Spirit flyer forever
Thankfully there hasn't been too much happen to me which i would class as 'attack'. I do remember one time though when i was home alone. It was the end of the day and i'd just settled down to read my Bible. I turned a light on and sat on my bed. As soon as i had done so and was about to start reading, the light went off. I stared at the light switch in a not amused way and thought ' ha ha very funny now turn that back on!' The light came on again straight away. Maybe it was meant to scare me but i felt more annoyed than scared at the time
as we were just starting to host a church plant in our home i lost my job. my mother-in-law was sure we were being attacked, i was sure i was working for idiots.
I think anytime God asks you to do something really hard and step out of your comfort zone for Him, Satan is going to try to discourage you, whether by minor inconveniences, discouragement or distractions.
Four months ago, I felt the Lord tell me to join the Prayer Ministry at our new church. The pastor sent me a form to fill out. My plan was to fill it out and send it to him via email, like the hip person I am (NOT). I had problems with the program, so I printed and completed it by hand. Then, I either lost it on my desk until Monday morning in which it quickly sank back into the pyramid of children's schoolwork/junk mail and half finished work by the time Sunday arrived. Would this be a spiritual attack, or just Satan using my disorganized nature to thwart God's work? (Epilogue: I recently decided to launch a major excavation so that I could find my work surface. When I uncovered it, Ipromptly put it in an envelope, addressed and stamped it and placed it conspicuously so that it can get in the mail before 2009 ends.)
still laughing about your reference of the situation !
All interesting points of view. In considering the question I think about 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV):
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Also, Ephesians 6:12 (NIV): For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
I'm not the paranoid type that thinks every zit is an attack (though some have been questionable), the Bible says it's real and it happens.
I'm assuming thats drinks at 140 degrees Fahrenheit- 140 celsius sounds rather painful
I was just talking about this in my blog called Christian Man. http://anthonygee.wordpress.com/
I think the craziest was when my friend had been playing a sport in bad shoes and it damaged his feet, and people said it was spiritiual war fare.
I have a thought that is roughly related, and has been in my head all day.
"And these three remain, Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest is love." Last verse of I Cor. 13, but I likely forgot a pointless word there.
These three are the ultimate weapons in the spiritual, and none can contest them. Faith allows for you to know God is there, Hope allows for you to not fail in satan's face, and Love heals the wounds of spiritual battle. We win when we call upon him, and when a trial comes, Hope pulls us through, and Love will repair us when we break. Enjoy the remnant, because it is incredibly strong. It is God's best gift to us, and it is our only hope in this depraved generation. Enough of my rant, I will continue it in short story form later.
Well, maybe we should add this to the question for Rob Bell.
After all, he did teach that everything is spiritual…
; )
I don't remember the phrase but it says, "We're not physical beings going through a spiritual journey, we're spiritual beings going through a physical journey." I think that says a lot. I think everything is spiritual. I don't think everything is a spiritual attack but I think if you're a Christian than you should be looking through the physical and see the spiritual. Speaking of hot drinks, I remember one time I was getting out of my car I had a hot cup of tea and I saw this woman going into church which I really dislike, I mean I hate everything about her. But as I was thinking that, I sipped my tea and it burned my mouth. I know immediately it was God saying, "Stop your attitude right now." It wasn't a spiritual attack but for me to just think I burned my tongue wouldn't be wise.
The rat and roach may not be spiritual attacks but they probably are revealing something spiritual in your life. If even the rocks cry out about God, then why not other objects? Anyways, may sound absurd but so does a man rising from the dead or a man defying gravity by walking on water. Spiritual attacks are around us. I'll classify it as a spiritual attack if the situation reveals the attributes of Satan, either stealing, killing and destroying is involved.
nicodemusatnite.blogspot.com
Argghhhhh, so much commenting, there's no way I'll ever read it. God is sovereign. Shit happens and we live in a both/and, now-and-not-yet world… Everything is spiritual.
What I really wanna say is that I totally disagree with the rat-killing. Honestly, that grandma defo should have been saying sorry. Take it one step back and she should have been not doing something that she knows needs saying sorry for. Glue traps and poison?! It may not be a person but that is still torture. Get compassionate for that rat – why draw a line at love?
P.S. Not wanting to sound judgemental, just, well, I only recently started thinking seriously about animals and I actually reckon it is a much bigger deal than Christians make space for it to be.
Honestly, you're preaching my mind right now. My neighbors and all the ladies at their ladies group at their church are saying that since all of them are falling off steps or having back problems and that everything is going wrong, "This is definately Satan attacking us."
And me? Sometimes I think life happens.
I think we definitely have to be careful what we classify as an attack, like everyone said, But I also know that a lot more often than not, in my circle of friends, we tend to forget about the possibility of an attack. It's something we NEED to be aware of but not something we need to be paranoid about. It can happen, yes. We have our faith in the Creator of the universe, yes. Then lets trust HIM to protect us. Stay close and He'll shield you with His arms.
When I went to a mission conference in Thailand, this really sweet lady from North America was dealing with a 14 hour time difference and the ensuing jet lag, but she said that God had been waking her up early each morning to spend special time with him…I am still getting such a wicked, wicked laugh from this. I suppose that because I'd spent the previous year in Asia and was not suffering such jet lag, I was just not as important to God as she was during that particular week…either that, or I'm just not a good Christian…or something like that!
Jon, this is a good topic.
Its tough to find a happy medium when it comes to discerning whether certain events are a spiritual attack. I also feel like a lot of Christians (in America at least) don't really believe/accept the fact that there are in fact spiritual battles that take place. But thats another topic for another day….
I really didn't think much of spiritual warfare stuff before this past year….and then I went to stay with a good friend of mine, whose roommate was being tormented by a demon and was having it cast out of her while I was there. Yeah, talk about a rude awakening. It know it sounds crazy, but it was the truth, and it was frightening.
A couple months later I did have a talk with that friend (and the girl who was being tormented as well) about what had happened, and got a little perspective. The fact is that we have already won, and Jesus has given us the authority over these things, so we have nothing to fear. Yes, we need to be aware of it, but our God is BIG.
I've definitely dealt with some spiritual attack in my own life, especially when I'm doing outreach or ministry (I dance with a Christian dance company and sometimes get to speak as well), but all that says to me is that God must have something big planned, and Satan is just trying to rain on his parade.
I once heard a Pastor say the devil had been attacking him that week because he got a speeding ticket.
FooteNotes http://billfoote.wordpress.com
There is definitely a balance in all this. Years ago I remember John MacArthur speaking about a group that was praying against traffic problems in a large city. They viewed that as a spiritual attack and set about to bind the foul demons that were placing all those cars in the way. When I was ministering in the Philippines there was a church there that would cast all the demons out of the service before they started. The funny thing is they had to open the door so they could get out. Those are obvious extremes.
At the same time there is real spiritual attack that happens. I believe it usually (though not always) revolves around truth and lies. The devil wants us to embrace lies. God wants us to stand on His truth. You see this in wilderness during the temptation of Christ. The devil attacked with lies, Jesus responded with specific truth that countered those lies.
Ephesians 6:16 gives us a clue about where the battle rages.
“Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
The devil shoots those fiery darts filled with lies, his aim is for them to lodge deeply into our thinking and begin to burn and consume our thinking. When this happens we start heading down those paths that lead to fear, insecurity, doubt and ungodly behavior. The defense is to get that shield of faith up quickly to block those fire filled lies. We do that by trusting in and applying the scriptures we have prepared ourselves with when we buckled on the belt of truth (Eph 6:14). We do that by using the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God (Eph 6:17). This is the example that Jesus gave us in His temptation.
Spiritual warfare can happen in circumstances and in sickness. Take Job for example. Mostly though, I believe it happens in the battle for truth against lies.
Sermon over.
great post, great blog, I'm adding you to my blog roll. Personally I think that when an evil spirit takes on physical form, it's becomes a rat. However…
I agree with Michael that spiritual attacks from Satan are designed not to annoy us but drag us away from trust in Jesus. Rats and car troubles? What about the gross wealth of western society keeping the church nice and comfortable and lukewarm? Temptations to sin, and the sense of condemnation after sin to keep us from turning to God in repentant prayer? And false teaching that infiltrates the church and teach us to rely not on God but on ourselves, that sin isn't our main problem, and the cross not the only solution and guide for our whole lives? And really painful circumstances like terrible sickness and broken relationships that cause us to doubt God, or persecution? Or division in the church over things that don't matter? Or the temptation to stand united with church groups that deny the gospel? Or the lure of worldly idols that promise so much but only destroy us and capture our hearts? I think these are more the spiritual attacks. But hey, I guess Satan can use anything to drag our attention away from Jesus, and God can use anything Satan comes up with to further his Kingdom (aka the book of Acts).
We have to be careful who we give the credit to. I often like to blame the devil especially for things that seem bad to me. I made the mistake this past spring of attributing every bad thing that was happening to me (which was a lot) to works of the devil. I was sure it was spiritual warfare and Satan wasn't about to let up because I was about to go on a mission trip to Tanzania that summer. I look back at it now, and it was definitely God's dong and a blessing to have gone through what I did. So I just say be careful who you want to blame so to speak for things that happen.