“AAAAAAAACCCCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!” He sneezed. “I’m under spiritual attack.” Me, “No, you have a cold…perhaps allergies.”
I’m not that guy. I don’t attribute everything negative that I face to some ethereal battle between good and evil, banking that I am spotless and blameless in all that I do. I very often, and have done so this week, take the blame placed on me when I am guilty of it. However, I’m also not the guy who thinks that everything in this world is only about this world. There is a balance to be found and deciphered. Here are a few things I’m fairly certain of…
1. The bible is pretty clear when it says, “ For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” – Eph 6:12.
2. All of the time? Some of the time? Once or twice?
3. I would go so far as to add, “…we should realize that we most likely too often wrestle…” at the beginning of that verse.
4. In reality we wrestle very hard against flesh and blood, the things that are directly before us, the immediate, the obvious, the tangible.
5. The left side of our brain is matter of fact and can see that these Godly words can be, often are, could perhaps (depending on your level of belief) be true.
6. Our emotional right side is hurt by the attacks and reminds us of similar hurts that have not been comforted (and even those that have been) and simply reacts to said hurt...quickly.
7. On a more applicable level I explain through example.
8. Monday morning I made the comment to Rachel that I had quite the week ahead of me and that I was (contrary to where I have been emotionally/mentally recently) not going to fear the worst but take things as they come and do my best to be positive.
9. I spent 4+ hours that afternoon navigating through UPMC and Healthcare.gov and back through UPMC again, attempting to procure coverage for Rachel and myself. I WAS SUCCESSFUL, and all I had to do was pay. As I hit enter an error message popped up and said, “We are having trouble retrieving information from your financial institution. We will save your information. You do not have insurance at this point.”
10. For the next two days I did not receive any email from UPMC saying that I needed to pay or that I had insurance. When I called I was put on hold for very long periods of time. When I got back on line it did not recognize me.
11. On Tuesday I did my prep work for my first announcing of the basketball season. It should have taken 45 minutes. After 4 hours (I had already spent 1 hour over the weekend) due to some technical/computer issues, I left for the games…still not ready for what was being asked of me.
12. Wednesday only brought minor issues that were more inwardly frustrating, nothing major. A bonus was stopping by the UPMC booth at the mall and finding out that they HAD saved my info. I was able to pay and put that issue to rest (I was VERY thankful for that).
13. Today, I was completely ambushed by a separate situation that came out of the blue (which I suppose is inherent in being “ambushed”). Thankfully, there was no validity to the situation and it ended well.
14. I look around to those in my immediate world and see a similar pattern.
15. Did I say that I was trying to stay positive and wasn’t going to assume the worst?
16. Mind you, I’m trying real hard to not let other things leak into well, other things. So far so good.
17. Others have come to me recently with similar issues.
18. You see, it only seems to reason that I would then face much of the same.
19. I have been very blessed with the ability to keep the right side of my brain in as much check as possible and minimize any rash stupidity on my part.
20. I realize as well that this is most likely not over.
21. I have seen previous hurts and/or “spiritual attacks” where I reacted in a Godly fashion already come back to aid me in this process.
22. I can see how God is preparing/protecting/defending me on many fronts of this ordeal.
23. Mind you, I have stated that I am not necessarily “that guy.”
24. Lastly know this, the spiritual game look like this (depending on what you believe you may or may not believe that)…
A. There is a God.
B. There is an enemy (call it what you want, the enemy, the devil, satan, murphy’s law…whatever).
C. God wants to be in a relationship with you.
D. The enemy does not want that.
E. The enemy will do whatever it can to dissuade you of that.
F. If you have said relationship, the enemy will do whatever it can to keep you from spreading God’s love
to others.
G. The enemy has two great lies, that it doesn’t exist and that it is just as powerful as God. Neither is true.
So, I will continue to do my best to not allow the enemy to trip me up. I will weather these and future attacks. I will pray hard that I don’t fly off of the handle as they come my way and be disciplined to heal from previous hurts so as not to give new ones added fuel.
I will continue to seek and serve those in the midst of the crap of their life and come along side them and comfort them with the same comfort that I have received.
“Everyone has a story” is something I have realized, said, and written about. I have come to realize that a more true statement is that everyone has many stories (battles they are facing…not just one).
Realize that it’s not always a battle between flesh and blood…and/or histamines.