As I sat on a bus bound for
destinations unknown my mind began to take its own journey to a distant shore.
As the world outside the windows drifted by, my brain began to make up its own
image. There I sat in a puddle of lust. My mind pulling vivid images onto the
big screen and my soul became heavily burdened.
I tried to snap out of it. I couldn’t
fight off the images. I tried thinking about the beach, or the bus ride, but
nothing worked. Suddenly I burst out into prayer…
“God,
I don’t want this! I want you. Spirit of lust be gone in the name of Jesus.
Father fill that place with your spirit. Help me Lord, I repent!”
The fight did not stop there. As
the wheels rolled on, so did the battle. Bus headed west, my mind going south,
all the while my compass was pointing north. I could not shake it, and my mind
continued to dive deeper into thought. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my mouth
opened up and praises began to vomit themselves from somewhere inside my body.
I couldn’t stop them. With each internal thought of lust came voiced praises.
They just rang out.
A war was fought inside of me
today. It was a battle of light and darkness. Now I sit, 5 hours later, bowed
down upon my knees, singing out to the living God. He has claimed victory in me
once again. Praise be to God.
After all of this, I remembered a
prayer I said in the Dominican. “God,
open my eyes to the things unseen. Open my eyes to the spiritual battle around
me. Let me be part of the fight.”
As I told my team about all of this
“spiritual attack”, it seemed obvious that God was trying to reveal to me the
spirit of this place. Some of them had been battling the same thing as well.
Sara explained to me that the place
where our homeless shelter stands used to be a brothel. Turns out, Love Lane,
the road it is on, is known for just that thing. It is where men used to keep
their mistresses. Sara said, “It makes sense that there is a spirit of lust in
this place.”
God, did you just open my eyes to
things unseen?
Here is a poem I wrote before the
race, turns out I am truly understanding what it actually meant…
http://williamdiefenbach.theworldrace.org/?filename=spirits-at-war
