It was dark. Really dark.
As I walked back from evening worship, I could hear the Buddhist chant going on at the temple; and it felt dark, more than just a physical darkness. As I opened the door of the empty house the words, “Satan thinks he owns Asia”, rang in my mind. I started praying. Even though I knew the promises and I knew that God was hearing my prayers, I was still afraid.
I went through my normal nightly routine feeling like something was not ok, knowing that some supernatural force was attacking me. I prayed more, sang scriptures back to God and claimed them over my life and peace. The fear abated some, but it was still there, lurking in the dark corners of the room.
Just before I went to bed I called my mom knowing that she would be willing to pray for me and she could help me. She reminded me of Psalm 4:8 which says, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety”. I knew that I had at least my mom and my boyfriend praying for me, and I could already feel God’s peace. It was an overwhelming sensation because part of me knew that the devil was still waiting to try to break through God’s defenses, but I also knew full well that I was in God’s hands and that He would protect me and help me sleep.
I can’t say that I slept great that night, but I slept peacefully, and in the morning I knew that God had protected me. That morning my mom called me again to check on me and she told me that at the same time that she and my boyfriend were praying for me, my grandmother was also praying though she had no idea what I was going through. As God gave me peace, He was answering prayers that I didn’t even know were being prayed.
At first, as I thought about that night, I thought that maybe it was just my fear that God had helped me overcome. Maybe I had just been afraid to sleep in an empty house in Thailand for the first time. Maybe it had been nothing. In my mind it was perfectly explainable without involving the supernatural. However, I still had two nights to spend by myself and, as I went through them without fear, I became certain that the devil had tried to attack me that first night.
As I look back at this night, and how I reacted to it, I realize that this is a problem for a lot of people today. I’m not necessarily talking about the devil attacking, even though he does attack everyone on a daily basis. Rather I’m talking about us ignoring the things unseen. I have heard many people say that God is still doing what He did in the Bible and I think that’s true. However, I think that as Christians we often agree with that statement, but then we don’t relate it to our lives.
So, when God does do something awesome in our lives, we cover it over with excuses of, “It’s just a coincidence”, or like I said, “I was just afraid. That’s normal”. We like to think of God doing awesome things in our lifetime and in our world, but when it actually happens, we don’t like to accept it.
I would encourage you to accept the awesomeness of God when He shows Himself to you. I am going to work on looking for the places that God has shown Himself to be working and then I am going to work on not downgrading what He is doing. I don’t want to make excuses for something awesome that God has/is doing. I want to accept the full awesomeness of God.
I want to see the things unseen.
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