The battle between spiritual light and darkness has become a daily reality since being on the World Race. The spiritual world just invades the physical more when you are in countries where people worship idols openly on the streets and pictures of demons meet you on every street corner and home. Nepal is one of those countries because like India, Hinduism and Buddhism are the prominent religions. Unlike India though, Nepal has not felt like one giant spiritual battle for me. In India, I felt the need to continually pray against spiritual attack and when I didn’t, I felt the difference. Here though, I genuinely feel more peace and more joy. Maybe it’s because we are always surrounded by beautiful mountains that call forth daily praise. Maybe because the natural beauty calls my spirit to rest, or maybe it’s because we are already walking into more spiritual light as a team.
This light we walk in, the light of Christ, is becoming more evident to me on a daily basis. Partially because I now have seen that others can tell we are different, that we carry something in our souls that they need.
On two separate occasions we have had total strangers, walk right up to our group and through hand gestures, ask for prayer.
The first, was a man in his 70’s who had a large tumor on the side of his neck. My team was just leaving our “home”, chatting about various things and not really paying attention to anything besides walking towards our ministry sight when he came directly into our group and started speaking and gesturing. Our translator didn’t even understand his language but as he continued speaking unknown words, he raised his hand and covered his tumor and then touched his head. We knew immediately, he wanted prayer for his tumor. We prayed, blessed him and then he went on his way. After praying, my team was slightly dumb struck at what had just happened. We hadn’t sought out this man, he had sought out us. Or you could say, the spirit inside him knew where to go in order to seek healing.
The second time it happened, was on one of our very long evangelism hikes. Becky and I were huffing and puffing our way up one of the longest and steepest set of “stairs” i.e.. rocks, that I have ever seen let alone climbed. About half way up, a women who was coming down the stairs stopped us, made a prayer sign and started requesting prayer in her own language. You could feel the sadness in her voice. Becky prayed her before the women said thank you and moved on. Becky and I didn’t have a translator with us at the time, but were encouraged to hear that the women stopped the rest of our group further down the hill and they were able to encourage her with prayer, scripture and a testimony with our translator.
These two separate instances just showed me something, we are atmosphere changers. We walk in the light of Christ and that light is evident to those who crave light.
Multiply time, people sought out Jesus to be healed. Demons recognized Him from afar and people prophesied over him just when he came near. He was an atmosphere changer because He was the Light that so many had been wanting and waiting for.
In the same way, we as His followers should be atmosphere changers. We should be the kind of carriers of His presence that bring clarity and insight where we walk and healings break out because the spirit of the living God has entered into the room. People should know that we are different and carry something different.
So how do we walk in this spiritual light? How do we become atmosphere changers? We walk with him. Walking can be defined as moving at a regular and fairly slow pace, used to suggest that someone has achieved a state or position easily or undeservedly and the way in which someone lives or behaves.
According to 1 John 1:6-7, If we walk in the light, we have no fellowship with darkness, we have fellowship with one another and most importantly, we have fellowship with Jesus.
That is truly, in my opinion, where this atmosphere changing light comes from, fellowship with Jesus and with those that walk with Jesus. I think the difference I have seen in my team and the light that we now pocess is stemming from our walks with the Lord and with our new community we now live in.
I love Nepal and I love walking in this light. I pray that we continue to change the atmosphere of this nation and every nation we walk in from here on out.
