We were driving to Mozambique, on our way from South Africa. Debrief had just ended and we were thrilled about our upcoming time in Mozambique. I am in charge of the finances for our team. This involves keeping track of all money that is spent, reconciling all receipts, handling all money transactions, etc. I needed to withdraw money to pay for the ride from South Africa. We stopped at a big travel complex with a gas station, a store, a fast food restaurant and an ATM. I decided to withdraw money there because I wasn’t sure we would have another chance. I asked Jenny Brown to join me at the ATM for safety. We went to the ATM and began to withdraw money. The machine spit my card out once. This had happened before, so I reinserted the card. It happened again and someone came up to help. I am not exactly sure how the man got passed Jenny and into the small booth, but suddenly he was there and then there was another. He showed me how I should insert the card. When it did not come back out, they continued trying to help and ordering me to try different things. I listened to their suggestions, but nothing was working. Miserably for me, my card did not come back out of the machine.
That was the worst feeling for me. I felt like such a failure. I hated it because it wasn’t just my debit card, it was the team card. That meant we would have to struggle for funds until we could figure out something else. I was incredibly frustrated, yet I could do nothing. This is when the enemy began to aggressively attack my thoughts. He told me that this natural event was a mirror of my spiritual life. In the natural, I did not stand firm and take authority against those men. And in the spiritual I have no authority; I do not stand firm and I do not exercise my power. He continued to tell me that I had failed; that I was stupid and should have known. He fed me lies over and over. I tried to take my thoughts captive, but my spirit was weakening. I was actually ready to go home. I was telling God that I could not do this. God had been teaching me so much about the power and authority that I had in Him. Now, Satan was attacking that and using a natural situation to decay me spiritually. I felt too weak to fight.
Thankfully, our team came together that morning to talk about where we were at and to bring focus to our time in Mozambique. The entire time I was holding back tears. I knew that I needed to share what had been going on, but I didn’t want to because I knew I would break down. Finally at the end I shared how I was being attacked.
This is where the beauty of community swept through. I told them how I had been feeling. My family asked me to verbalize a lie that Satan had told me. Then they prayed and as God replaced the lie with truth, I spoke it out loud. We continued to do this. It was still hard because sometimes I knew the truth God was speaking, but it was hard for me to believe it. Next each one in my family spoke life and truth to me about what they saw in me and who I was in Christ.
God desires church to be a collection of moments similar to what I just described. He designed it to be a place where believers unite and live life together. It is not to be a place where we put on our happy faces and pretend we are perfect and everything is OK. It is not about hiding our sin. It is a place where you can find community; a place where you can be transparent and feel safe. When will this be what one expects to find in church? The enemy has completely distorted some of our views of church. He constantly lies to us and scares us away from being vulnerable. I definitely know this all to well. I encourage you to fight for the truth. And fight for each other. It is worth it. My family fought for me when I was too weak to fight – that is church.
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. – Eph 6:12
You give us victory over our enemies, You put our adversaries to shame. – Ps 44:7
