It was a typical night of ministry. By “typical” I mean that we had once again, fit twice the recommended number of passengers into a van ruck vehicle with no windows or seatbelts, and the biggest airbag was the one typing this blog; driven over an hour into the middle of nowhere to find a village of less than 100 residents and preach whatever the Spirit laid on our hearts, all the while hoping that some Buddhist extremist doesn’t call the cops cause what we are doing will certainly result in incarceration for us, and a beating followed by incarceration or possible death for the hosting pastor.
“Typical”
Anyway, my teammates and I had, that morning, discussed the authority that we have. How we, simply as children of Adam, have authority over the Earth and everything in it, and how we as Christians bear the authority of the Holy Spirit and with that the responsibility of using it to bring kingdom.
I felt led to share this, and prepared a message on authority. I was a little hesitant cause the message felt like it was more directed to men despite the fact that the truth applies to both men and women. Nevertheless, I’ve learned to obey when the Spirit leads so I kept it as is.
Arriving at the village as the sun was setting, my notes were in shambles with no semblance of order to it, I barely had an idea of the concept, and had a queasiness in my stomach.
*Was it the water? Why am I so out of it?*
The congregation of fifteen arrived, but something was different. Every other village had had one or two men and the majority were women and children. Tonight, not only were the majority men, but many were my age. Thinking back, I couldn’t recall having an audience that better fit the message I’d prepared…..if only I could somehow piece this together!
The singing began and I sat enjoying the Indian songs sung in Telugu, the local language. I prayed.
“God, I have no idea how to piece together all these points. My “message” is not a message and if it’s just me, it will be pointless rambling. Father, remind me of the authority which I’m preaching on and give me the words you would have me share”
Time’s up, my time to share.
Standing up, I dodged the fan, whistling inches from my head (the problem of being 6 foot in a country of 5′ 6″ people) and began to preach.
It was bad. Really bad. Audience participation was failing miserably and single questions were taking 5 minutes to clarify and get an answer. Despite the best efforts of our impeccable translator, I didn’t feel like they were understanding the message I was trying to share.
Dropping my notebook in partial frustration with my sloppy writing, I began to share my heart.
I don’t know how long I talked or what scripture I used. I couldn’t even remember what I said, and my hands were shaking as I concluded with a prayer. It was the weirdest thing because I had abandoned my notes but had peace that what was said was spoken by the Spirit and had accomplished what was needed.
After praying for each of them as a team, we piled back into the vehicle (quite literally piled) and rambled down the road.
“I wonder what food we will have tonight? I hope it’s chipatti! Chances are it won’t be biryani, but either way, I can’t wait!”
The vehicle stopped in front of a small church building which we were informed was actually a Christian radio station. I’m still not sure how it was a radio station cause inside there was a rug, some Congo drums, and an AC unit, but that’s not the point. The point was, there was no food in the room.
“Darn!”
Eating in the villages is the highlight of my day, but this was obviously more ministry so I simply told my stomach to stop growling and asked the translator what we were supposed to be doing.
Turns out we were supposed to pray for the few people in the room. Praying for people has become so routine that I struggle with keeping it personal, especially as we have heard of healing and blessings following the people we have prayed for, so I focused and began to pray for one lady while others prayed for another elderly lady.
The lady, who was probably my age or just a bit older, was acting a little wierd. She wouldn’t maintain eye contact and would keep throwing her head from one side to another with whiplash ferocity.
*That’s gotta hurt, why does she keep doing that?* I thought.
“She is being possessed by spirits” our translator told us. “She has had this for 8 months and it comes and goes. Sometimes it jumps from her to the mother and back.”
“Spirits?”
*you mean like Frank Peretti stuff? Are we gonna see black stuff ooze from her eyes? Do you use salt or holy water? No, no, no, that’s from the tv show Supernatural….for real though, what do you do?*
I’d only encountered a demon once before on the Race and that was in Colombia with a man who kept saying that voices were telling him to drive a kebab skewer into his leg.
During my thoughts, the pastor came up and touched her neck and with a single word, she suddenly collapsed to the ground.
Wierd, but hardly the dramatic, screaming, gnashing of teeth, spiritual battle stuff I’d read about in my Christian fiction books as a teenager.
I was still certain she just had drank some bad water and had a wierd disease no one had heard of this far into the heart of India, so as we gathered round her to pray for her, I just watched her as the others prayed.
They began to pray, and that’s when shi* hit the fan.
Eyes rolled back, check
Bloodcurdling shriek, check
Typical stuff you see in horror movies and read in books, check.
Suddenly, she stopped. Her eyes had changed. Where before they were wide and darted left to right in sheer panic, they had become normal, maintaining eye contact and looked peaceful. She also began to speak normally with her mother and was laughing with joy.
The pastor said something to her which was translated for us “say ‘Jesus is Lord’ “. The girl smiled and opened her mouth…..and stopped.
Her face was strained and her mouth was stuck. She tried again, and again her mouth was stuck. She could say other words, but physically could not say “Jesus is Lord”. She looked at us with a pained expression and sadness and fear in her eyes as she kept trying to say those three simple words.
“Let’s pray again”
Sitting down on the floor, the pastor told her to put her hands together as they prayed. She did.
With a sudden jerk, her eyes shot open and darted from place to place with the same panic-stricken look as she dropped her hands to her lap. Again the pastor told her put her hands together. Again she tried, but her hands would not go together and her head kept jerking from one side to another, all the time avoiding eye contact with any of us.
I took her hands in mine and placed them together and held them there with mine. She/it/whatever looked straight at me with a fierce anger in the eyes, but for some reason, I wasn’t afraid, God had given me peace.
The others began to pray again and again the shrieks and moans and chomping of teeth resumed. The pastor grabbed a bucket and gave it to her, to which she responded by emptying an entire mouthful of saliva into the pail.
I began to pray as well, to which, she repeatedly hit my hands with her head until I looked up at her.
*Why wasn’t she healed? Why did she “relapse”? Jesus has power which He gave to us, why is this so difficult? That other guy prayed with someone all night, do I need to be prepared to pray all night? Is having to pray more a sign of less faith? What the heck is going on? Doesn’t this demon know that he doesn’t have any power here? Doesn’t he know he’s hurting her physically?*
I felt a surge of something…..anger, love, peace, the desire to punch it in the face….when I remembered that Jesus had asked the name of the demon before he cast it out.
*Heck, I didn’t know, it was worth a shot.
Wait, can demons understand English? I mean, I speak English, and this demon is in India, does he speak Hindi? Can demons travel around? Like, if it had been to American and does speak, will it have a New York accent?*
So many thoughts flooded my mind, so many questions, none having an answer; but I had to do something with this surge of whatever it was.
I was about to act like a fool, but whatever this was was physically hurting this woman and her family, and it had to stop.
I waved my hand to get her attention and it looked at me. As its eyes began to wander away again, I spoke:
“LOOK AT ME!”
It looked at me straight in the eyes with flashes of panic and anger, but it didn’t break eye contact.
*Oh shi*, oh shi*, oh shi*, I just made it mad….had I yelled accidentally instead of spoken? I don’t know! Don’t break eye contact, whatever you do, don’t break eye contact! Why? I dunno, I’m not a demon expert! Oh, oh, ask it if it can speak English!*
Sometimes I feel like there are fifty middle schoolers operating my brain but now was not the time to interview it for the World Race Daily.
“LOOK, LET’S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT, I KNOW YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME, SO STOP HIDING BEHIND THIS LANGUAGE-BARRIER B.S. I KNOW YOU UNDERSTAND ME AND I KNOW YOU KNOW, COMPRENDE?”
*Did you seriously just say “comprende” to a demon Mike? Yeah, yeah, I know, but it just came out.*
“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”
“Gurgle-snarl-snap-shriek-moan”
*Ok, responsive, that’s good….I think. But I don’t think that’s a name. I mean, that one dude’s name was “Legion” but that was because there were a bunch of them, perhaps “gurgle-snarl-snap-shriek-moan” is a name in their language?*
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME? I KNOW YOU KNOW THE POWER OF JESUS, I HAVE THAT POWER AND YOU WILL TELL ME YOUR NAME.”
“Huh-shriek…..huhay-snap……Muh-snarl”
*All 50 middle schoolers of my mind were front and central for a full 5 seconds, a personal record. The only thing I could think was “what?”*
“Hey, Huh, Hey, Muh, Muh, heyyyyman-snarl”
*Ok, ok, now we’ve got something.*
My brain was like every CIA scene in any movie, trying to piece together this data into a formable name.
*Muh-hey-man? OHMYGOSH OHMYGOSH this is Haman? Like from Esther? Front and center, ladies and gentleman, I want all known aliases for “Haman”. Last known location, possible contacts, freeze his assets and bank accounts, we have a demon-badass on our hands!”*
Then the pastor leaned over and whispered in my ear “Hama (pronounced hey-Muh) is HER name. It’s a Buddhist name.”
*Oh. So, what you’re saying is….oh….ok, everyone can go home, false alarm.
Did the demon have the same name or was she answering me? How did she understand English?*
I had acquired “analysis paralysis” and sat back. I had no idea what to do. We had tried praying and I was confident that I was gonna see a black cloud shoot from her eyes and go flying off into the distance with special-effects theatricality in response to the name of Jesus.
Instead, a dozen Christians all praying for her deliverance hadn’t resulted in anything other than a freak-show, and in the meantime, the girl was still grimacing and rubbing her neck while unable to speak whenever the attacks happened.
The pastor and our driver said it was time to leave.
*How could they just leave? How could my team agree with them? There’s a family suffering here and I literally just preached about the authority we have as Christians! I’m willing to stay here all night praying for her, why is no one else? Do they not care?*
I knew my thoughts were lying to me, but I still didn’t know what to do. It felt wrong to leave this in a cloud of dust in our rear view mirror. I had faith God would continue His good work, but I had no idea what to do. As we began to leave, two of the long-term missionaries and I prayed for the mother. They had both laid hands on her shoulders so I put my hand on top of her head. Waiting for them to finish, I began to pray.
“Father, I pray for more of your spirit in this woman. A double-portion of your Holy Spirit in her heart, God”
Looking around, I realized I was the only one there, just me and her. The other two had left.
*Whatever, I’m not done praying*
Closing my eyes again, I just prayed “More Spirit, God; more Spirit, more Spirit”
I felt my hand lowering, like she was slowing crouching down, and opening my eyes, I saw her knees buckling and she was beginning to fall backwards.
I yanked my hand back, looking at her in bewilderment. What the actual eff……She doesn’t have a demon, why would she be passing out??
She looked at me, I looked at her, it was awkward.
Placing my hand back on her head, I decided that it wasn’t safe to pray for more of the Holy Spirit, so I prayed “More of Your love, God; more of Your love, more love, more love”.
This time, I felt my hand dropping faster and my eyes flashed open in response to a loud groan, and I yanked my hand back. Her knees had buckled again and she was about to fall backwards, this time with her head thrown back and a groan coming from her open mouth.
She steadied herself and looked at me. Her eyes were peaceful as if this was a normal occurrence. Mine were not.
*aw hell no, this is some WIERD shi*
Quickly I mumbled “Amen” and got the heck outta dodge.
Jumping into the van, I was thankful I had a window-seat. I needed the fresh air. My teammates were joking and laughing like normal but I didn’t understand. How could they be joking with their normal interpretation of humor when we had just seen this?
How could we be leaving?! There was work to be done, but even the local pastor had said it was time to leave. I had no idea what to do or think.
……………..
It’s been two weeks since that happened and God has shown me why nothing happened.
I always want a battle to fight in my own power. In my youth, that was terrorism, bad guys, whomever. Now it’s the Enemy.
I was so focused on fighting him that I never stopped to consider Hama….a girl without a relationship with the Father.
Did she need a demon cast out? Maybe.
Did she need a relationship with the Father and someone to show her that love? Definitely.
My pride and desire to fight in my own power kept me blinded to the bigger issue at hand….that a child of God had no relationship with Him.
