Earlier this summer, while preparing for a family vacation, I downloaded some audiobooks to listen to on the long drive. I figured it would help keep me awake and make the time go by faster. I really enjoyed it. So much so that I downloaded a couple more.
Please keep in mind that I'm not much of a reader. I like to read, but I haven't really taken the time to do it since my girls were very little. As a stay-at-home mom, I used reading as a "Mom break." So as I was trying to pick out audiobooks, all I could remember were the books I used to enjoy.
As a young mom and a young Christian, my first exposure to Christian fiction books was the books by Frank E. Peretti. If I remember correctly, someone from church recommended the first one I read and after that, I was hooked! But I haven't read a Frank Peretti book in 30 years. And you guessed it... I downloaded 4 Frank Peretti books for the vacation drive!
Peretti books are based on the spiritual realm we cannot see. Demons, angels, and the consequences of our actions. They unveil the battle that takes place in our everyday lives as we blindly go about our day.
I say all this as a preface to a recent event in my life.
God has spoken to me in many ways throughout the years. That still small voice has sometimes been soft and encouraging and at times it has been bold and alarming. And on some occasions, He has let me see glimpses of His power and majesty.
But last week. He gave me a dream. Not as in "I have a dream" but as in "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams (Acts 2:17)." I guess I fit into the "old men" category...
In my dream, an angel and a demon were having a sword fight. And every time their swords clashed together the sound echoed throughout the sky and flashes of light shot through the air like rockets blazing through the sky. And they were animated! Yes, like cartoon characters battling it out on the television!
My reaction was probably much like yours at this moment. I sat up in bed thinking "Lord, you are joking, right? Like, I get that not every dream comes from you and I've probably spent way too much time listening to Peretti books, but that was just weird!"
I went through my day convincing myself that my brain was overstimulated by the Peretti books and my imagination was getting the best of me, but that image just refused to go away. Days later I was still thinking about it.
But then He struck again! I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else, but I was just sitting at my desk working on something work-related and it HIT ME! Like downloading a podcast in my head! God's people don't take the battle in the spiritual realm seriously enough. We talk about it, pray about it, even read about it - but it's not sinking in! We treat it like a little kid's story in the Bible and say all the right things and quote all the right verses, but we don't really understand it.
We hear the clashing of swords and call it political rhetoric and extremist nonsense, but we never look UP. We see the flashes as the rockets buzz by, but we're so used to the noise and chaos that we brush them off as insignificant.
I think somewhere in our Christian brains we're just happy knowing that God ultimately wins the war. But how many people are we willing to sacrifice in the battle? Even Satan knows that God wins the final trophy, but that doesn't mean he's going down without a fight. The enemy fights hard, he fights dirty. Just because he's going to lose the war, doesn't mean he won't take down as many people as possible in the battles until then!
We - God's people - need to start paying attention to the wounded in the field! We are called to love one another as Christ loves us. Not love one another how WE love... love how Christ loves! Jesus DIED for us. That's a kind of love few of us are capable of.
Are we willing to see past our humanness, our anger, our pride, and see the enemy standing boldly in the shadows, sharp sword in-hand? It will be difficult to not take the harsh words our ears hear to heart. It will not be pleasant or easy to look at the anger and see the neighbor Jesus calls us to love.
The 6th piece of armor that Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 is the sword of the spirit, which represents the Word of God. For a Roman soldier, the sword served as an offensive weapon against enemies. When sharpened, the sword could pierce through just about anything, making it a very dangerous weapon.
Pick up your sword and fight! The Bible is the most printed book in history... use it! The Bible gives us the power to defeat the enemy. We need to be on the battlefield in God's word daily. Not just for us, but for those we are called to love.
Ephesians 6:12
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.
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