One summer, when I was serving in missions, I was given a small house to live in on an educational facility. It was a nice place to live, but it had a pretty large gap under the door that was the source of several adventures that summer.
One day, I realized that wasps had gotten in and had begun to build a nest on the fixture of the ceiling fan in the bedroom. Understand that my philosophy has always been that nature has a right to live. I hate to kill anything, so I didn’t do anything about it except move my cot into the kitchen to sleep there. I began to live my home life in half of the space that I was supposed to have. Yes, ridiculously, I moved ME out of the room, not the wasps. I probably lived that way for a month or two before I decided this was not wise. Eventually, I bought some wasp spray and got rid of the little menacing insects that were threatening me in my own home.
Similarly, a couple of years later, I was sitting in my bed sick of being sick. I was also in a very mad mood. Being mad was not typical. As I thought about it, I suddenly remembered another time that I was very mad, and it reminded me I needed to pray about it.1
I said something like, “Lord, I am your property.” Then I decided to tell Satan, “If you or your demons are messing with me and bothering me or my health, you have to go. I belong to the Lord.”
In response, I heard in my spirit, “But you let me in.”
I was shocked because I didn’t know Satan could respond. At the same time, I received a vision in my spirit that was from God to show me what was happening in my life. This revelation would change how I would respond to life from that point on.
In my spirit, I saw a vision of a house with a picket fence around it. I knew the house and the property represented my life. And though there was a fence around the yard, the gates of the fence were open, and there was garbage and graffiti all over. I quickly understood that though I had a fence in place, I needed to guard my property and tend to picking up the garbage that could be thrown over the fence both by people and by our spiritual enemy, Satan.
I prayed, and the anger immediately left me. My sickness did not leave immediately, but eventually left with prayer and fasting. I learned that I needed to take action and be on guard to defend my life, my well-being.
Our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being takes maintenance. When we see sickness or wrong-thinking and bad fruit in our lives, we need to take charge. It is easy to let Satan take over parts of our lives without realizing what is happening or recognizing that we have authority to do something about it. If the enemy wants to take over an area of your life like the wasps took over my bedroom, defend it. Jesus had all authority given to him, and he is with you if you are His. Your own strength may not be enough, but with Jesus, you have the strength to overcome Satan.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 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. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. --Ephesians 6:10-17 NIV 2
- This story correlates with Chapter 1/Session 1 of Managing Your Peace Bible Study which will be available for purchase near the end of 2024. Click here to keep updated on this resource ↩︎
- Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. ↩︎
Awaken My Spirit 