One eye opens. The room is bathed in the grey light of the early morning sky. The phone reads 5:56 A.M. One hour and four minutes before my alarm was to go off to start the day. Immediately my stomach churns, the thought of facing another day making even my bones turn to rubber. There is no way I am facing this day. There is no way I’m going to walk around this loud, obnoxiously busy city one more time. There is no way I’m pantomiming my life story to one more person who doesn’t understand my language. I pull my sleeping bag up over my head and my world goes dark. Yes, this is better, much better indeed.
This was how most of mornings went while in Harbin, China. I fell into a funk while there; some might even call it depression. Part of it could be that I had mono but a huge part was that I just didn’t want to go outside and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The Chinese people are an incredibly friendly people but there were days where I barely felt like returning a smile. I had no idea what was going on with me. Depression had never been a struggle in the past, and I loved people and loved smiling yet here I was the exact opposite of myself. I had become a stranger.
I spent a lot of time in prayer about what was happening and asking God to lift these feelings but I couldn’t shake the heaviness or the despair. It got so bad that there were times where I was convinced I wouldn’t stay another day on the World Race. It wasn’t until we had Debrief in Beijing that everything made sense. Even though we were in Beijing and having lots of fun the feeling persisted, but thankfully one night our squad mentor Karen talked to us about something called territorial spirits.
Basically they are demons who “take over” an area with something specific like depression or lust or greed etc. Their influence is strong and can be especially strong and hard on people who are sensitive to spiritual warfare or whatever struggles are specific to that area. For example, the suicide and depression rate in China is extremely high. In Thailand sex trafficking is a huge problem so the spirit of lust is especially strong here. I realized that these territorial spirits where affecting me and giving me feelings I had never felt before.
There was one night in Harbin when we were having a heartfelt worship and sharing time with our squad and I just couldn’t engage. I was so tired I was falling asleep with my eyes open and I felt absolutely miserable inside. In my delirious state I got this split second vision of this giant black cloud outside our window with a snaking black tendril coming through the window and into the base of my neck. There were a few other tendrils snaking around inside too but the Holy Spirit was present and this black cloud couldn’t enter except for those tendrils. I thought nothing of it at the time and brushed it aside as daydreaming but it all made sense when Karen told us about these territorial spirits. That’s what that was and I believe in that moment God showed me that so that I could immediately pray over that room and the area but instead I let it overpower me and thought it was just something silly. Well, it isn’t.
As soon as our plane landed in Thailand I felt these territorial spirits lift away and I felt happier and freer than I have in a while. This wasn’t their territory. God is doing some amazing things in Thailand, a land that is 94% Buddhist, and I can actually feel His presence here. That isn’t to say God isn’t doing amazing things in China but I believe that the enemy’s presence is much more prevalent there hence why it needs prayer more than ever. I’ve been in Thailand for 3 days now and love it here and love this free feeling I have that I didn’t have in China but God is revealing to me that the enemy is just as much at work here too but in a different way.
Even in America there are territorial spirits. Now that we are aware that certain demons are more prevalent in certain areas we are better able to combat them and pray against them. Prayer is our absolute greatest weapon and we must do it without ceasing.
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 59:19B
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Luke 10:19
