- One of the most sobering facts about life is that all humans have a supernatural enemy whose aim is to use pain and pleasure to make us blind, stupid, and miserable — forever. The Bible calls him “the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. . . the accuser” (Rev. 12:9-10), “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), and “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4).
He is our “adversary who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Yet, in the most appalling and unwitting bondage, the whole world willingly “follows the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). At his most successful his subjects march obliviously to destruction, and take as many with them as they can.
The “good warfare” or “fighting the battle well” (1 Tim 1:18) is the daily resistance of this enemy (1 Peter5:9; James 4:7), the daily refusal to give him the opportunity (Eph.4:27), and the daily stand against his schemes (Ehp. 6:11). – John Piper
- During our time in Ethiopia my team and I experienced this spiritual warfare first hand with the strategies Satan uses against us. Satan hates evangelism and discipleship, and he will throw every obstacle he can in the way of missionaries and people with a zeal for evangelism. Just like when Paul’s plans for ministry were frustrated in 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18.
- For one of our ministry days we planned on going into the community to evangelize, spend time with locals, and just love and spend time with them. We split up into two teams; a team that would be staying behind and do intercessory prayer while the other team would be going out. The team that would be going out into the community would be split up into smaller groups accompanied by a guide/translator.
- As we headed out in our groups I was expectant and excited to see what the Lord was going to do in or time out. The endless views of the landscapes were so grand and seeing people in the fields working and the animals roaming free was beautiful. After walking for a bit, we arrive to our first house leading up to a bunch of other houses with kids playing outside coming to greet us as we walked up. With our guide, we started greeting and talking to the locals and playing with the children as we made our way through. During this time, we started splitting up into smaller groups to not overwhelm the people and having two to three people go in at a time who felt led to go in while the others prayed outside. As we moved from house to house a group had gone ahead to help walk a woman home not knowing how far her house was and another group had gone a few houses ahead. One of our groups had gotten invited to have coffee and the woman had extended that invitation to all of us. As we made our way there we began to get concerned about the other group because they still had not returned. When we got to the house a member on our team was in tears and the other two people from the other group were there as well. Something was wrong…. Something had happened.
- The two people who had walked with the women home; on their way, back they had an unfortunate encounter with some men working in the field. The men were disrespectful to them and resorted to scaring them when they did not get what they want. Thankfully, they were able to get help and made it back safely to where we were. However, that incident had affected them emotionally and my team greatly. Along with another incident right outside the courtyard of where we were. A group of teenagers had surrounded a person on our team and started taking their belongings and running off. In these moments our joy, optimism, sense of safety, and security was replaced by fear, insecurity, lack of trust, and negative thoughts. A day that had started off so well had been robbed from us by the enemy!
- This would be the start of my new teams and I’s spiritual battle against the enemy during our time in Ethiopia. It had been less than a week being together in our new teams when this big storm hits us from all sides and we are shaken up and thrown into disarray. Not knowing that most of us had a background in relation to being hurt by men. Where each of us had received healing from and were walking in freedom in that area prior to Ethiopia. Weights were immediately hanging over us threatening to weigh us down at any moment or sign of doubt. Things like this in this area where we were staying don’t happen… this was a very rare occurrence.
- I personally was fearful that my past was going to come up again and that I would fall into that paralyzing fear once again. I also wanted to be strong for the girls on my team but I did not know how to help, I was stuck. I knew exactly how they felt and I felt terrible for the ones that were experiencing this kind of thing for the first time ever. Wishing I could take the pain, fear, and frustration that they were feeling away.
- After reflecting and debriefing what had happened we saw in each one of our stories of how that day played out along with the following things we would encounter this month from each one of our point of views the Lord was their providing redemption in what the enemy had intended for evil. In our actions and the way, we handled things in those moments. It gave us a burden in our hearts to pray for the men in that community as well as for the women and children. That there is hope in the Lord for the men to know better than that, for the women to be treated better, and for the kids to have a better opportunity to grow.
- As we moved on through our time in Ethiopia we ended up going to the capital city of Adis Ababa and spending the rest of our time there. I’m not going to lie it was hard. This event had fortunately brought my team together but we were all struggling with feeling safe internally. We fought every day to leave the compound of where we were staying praying and putting our confidence in the Lord but the enemy would be right there as well ready and waiting to strike at the first sign of vulnerability. This would happen daily and our team would be more susceptible to the enemy’s attacks than other teams. We felt like we were on an island isolated because no one knew how we felt and they were not experiencing this spiritual attack like we were at the same level.
- There were moments of defeat where there were days my team and I could not and would not leave the compound. Feeling guilty for seeing the people differently at the same time feeling scared and helpless. It was waves of constant emotions. Receiving a just “pray about it” by those on the outside looking in was disheartening and was planting seeds of frustration and anger.
- However, through everything going on and all the emotions surfacing it was our relentless fighting and starting each day with a clean slate that kept us from being overcome. We had a wakeup call one day during a devo that reset our mindset which turned our month in Ethiopia and associating it with being a month of terrible things to a month of redemption and healing.
- The Lord took what had happened that month and redeemed it by showing us how to fight, forgive, and heal. To constantly choose joy over defeat. It’s easier said than done but it is possible! We have the power to not give in to the enemies lies we have the option to choose joy. The only way the enemy gets power is if we give it to him.
- Satan has free reign over the earth but he is on a leash and he has a time limit here on earth and he knows it and he knows his time will come to an end.
- We need to remember this because we tend to forget a lot and we fall victim to his lies time and time again and we look back and we kick ourselves for falling for his tricks already knowing how he gets us. I hold the power and I get my power from the Lord! Being a Christian is not easy and the Lord tells us we will go through trials and tabulations but He is always there to help us through it. These trials suck and they’re not fun but they produce movement and growth.
- Resist! James says, “Resist and the devil, and he will flee from you!” (James 4:7)
