Battle Ready... or Not

Check it out.  I am NOT theologically educated.  Ok.  Fine.  I'm not ANY kind of educated.  I graduated high school with a GED.  Yup, that's right, I didn't even get a real diploma.
This chick thought she was beyond the controlled environment of high school, and with only 4 credits away from 'real graduation', I said adios to North Hall High School and Hola! to being a total IDIOT.

As I sit here now, I'm pretty thankful that I didn't, actually, turn out to be a complete idiot.  Somehow or another, a bit of intelligence kept me, I attained my General Education Diploma, and moved on with life. And life, as it does, happened super-duper fast! Before I could get the gung-ho's blazing inside of me, and pursue college- something else started BLAZING inside of me, and I found myself married a month after I turned 19.   Sometimes I wonder if saying I 'got pregnant, and then I got married' would have been an easier reason to explain my crazed young-person's attempt at marriage.....

Preggo status did not inspire holy matrimony to take place inside my (still) teen-aged years. Another form of  HORMONES, coupled with a lack of self control,  and  mixed in with (newly found) personal conviction prodded my man and I to hightail it to Chattanooga and say our "I Do's".

Ya.  Whatever.  I've written about this before.  I'm just  "filling-in-the-blanks".

AnyWHO- what a long way around explaining the fact that I, seriously, have NO way of theologically and intelligently detailing the how's and why's and what about's that are sure to come up with this blog.

The same with the faith and trust I have in a Creator, and a Savior, anything that I explain is accounted for through my very own personal experience, and maybe- if we're lucky,  a few paraphrased verses from the bible, and references to the ACTUAL educated authors that I've gleened from over the years.

I'm thankful to know the Truth.  I'm glad it's not just a watered down version of what is perceived to be true; but the Truth that, quite literally, has the power to set me free.

Historically, to attain freedom from bondage, war would typically need to take place.  I'm no history buff; I could spend a few minutes (or hours) researching all of the wars that were fought for the sake of freedom.  Let's just go with what we know, shall we?  The Civil War- slavery, and the fight for the removal of it.... there's a good one to start with.  War to get freedom.

Alright.  We have a broad perspective, then, don't we?

Up until a few years ago, I hadn't a CLUE about the realities of spiritual warfare.
Here's what I knew; there IS a Devil, he wants us to be "bad" (sin) so we will go to hell and suffer with him.  We choose to follow Jesus, cause He died on a cross for our sins, and shah-BAM... The Devil Loses! Ultimately, he's still gonna try to mess with us.... but- even still... he's a LOOO-SER!!!!!

Had I heard it any other way, I wouldn't have been able to comprehend the simplicity of salvation.  So, getting the very basics was ideal for my immature little heart.  The importance of an elaboration on all things spiritual wasn't emphasized.  Not really.

God must've been preparing my heart for a long time;  in order for me to receive the knowledge, and apply the wisdom pertaining to Spiritual War.  Had all the information been dumped in my lap in one fail swoop, I'd have written it off as "whacko" and moved along.  I'd have closed my heart and my mind to future references, and I'd be in pretty junky shape today for it.  (Not to say I don't encounter far too many hard-to-handle, straight up confusing situations, now).

I've heard the preacher say "The devil is here to steal, kill, and destroy!", and I've noted that the hardships in my Christian walk  were a direct relation to the enemy's lurking.  Somehow, I had all these little seeds perfectly planted in my spirit, (in my heart and in my mind) just waiting for the perfect fertilizers, i.e.... the right teacher, the right book(s), etc.

Every man is susceptible to falling; Just getting that out there real quick......

A fallen man, anointed to preach the Word, and reach the lost,  said "What you don't know is what's hurting you the most."   Right on, man.  Right. ON!

Let's get into the point of this blog.  Just a heads up: You may wanna add me on your "whacko" list afterward; and believe me, I'm so-totally-cool with it.  Jesus was thought to be 'whacko', too; walkin' around saying He was God, and all that jazz.... It was totally weird back in the day- to hear some long-haired-hippy-lookin' Jew claim He was "The way, the truth, and the light."and to be told that "NOBODY got to the Father (Abba God) except through Him"- yup- it was OUT THERE, but it was also all the way true.

The bible says the enemy, Satan, is like a LION.... prowling around in search of someone to devour (Peter 5:8).

I broke out this book "The Battle" (Trask & Goodall) after an extreme encounter last night with some harsh (understatement!!!) spiritual attack.  In the book, the author(s) put out a really good perspective on the LION-like example of Satan:

      "The lion is territorial- it doesn't follow a migrating herd.  Rather, it waits for the herd to enter into it's region, not caring whether or not the herd is aware of it's presence.  The lion will run into the herd; not so that it can chase, but so that it can watch.  It's sharp senses are aware to which one of the animals are tired, injured, or old....  The lions focus is to frighten the herd, so that he can wisely choose his prey."  p. 15 


Last night- with complete unawareness of the stalking sharp eyes that were focused on my weakness, I blindly stumbled into the enemy's territory.  At first, it seemed I was having an intense nightmare; but somehow, within the nightmare, I had a realization that it wasn't, actually, a nightmare.

Typically, when we find ourselves in an unpleasant dream, we can sort of "shake" ourselves awake once the nightmare becomes too intense, right?  Sort of like the dream where we're falling- and just before we hit the ground, we JUMP awake; (scaring the PEE out of the spouse that had been snoring peacefully seconds before.)
If we, for some reason- don't "wake up on our own", we may very well find ourselves wakened by the KER-THUMP from our limp bodies hitting the floor beside our bed.  If that's never happened to you- by all means, feel free to enjoy the mental image of my grown-behind falling out of bed.  I can count far too many times that I was too far gone to stop myself from "hitting the pavement".  Actually, I read somewhere that many people believe that NOT waking up before hitting the ground in a dream would actually KILL a person in their sleep.  Obviously; I don't believe that to be true.  Ahem...  I'm not dead.

I assume, though, that something in our mind realizes when we don't have the capacity to maintain within the nightmare.  I think what happens is, when the intensity maxes out, our subconscience goes "to an early lunch", requiring our consciencsness to take over.

This was not the case last night.  Sadly.

Inside my dream, I fought hard to wake myself up.  When nothing worked to get me into reality, I said "Jesus.  Jesus.  Jesus." over and over.  Like most dreams, this one was a cluster of many different situations; all connected, yet disconnected- making the recount completely impossible to put into words.
After praying (in my dream), I believed that I had woken up.  I looked around my room- and noticed that there was a distant flashing light that darkened and dimmed our bedroom.  I felt paralyzed and completely "out of it" mentally.  I kept trying to NOT do something, and I kept trying to DO something- neither working out very well for me.  I couldn't talk, although I tried SO HARD to scream so that Joshua would wake up and rescue me.

This was the point that I realized that I had to have been dealing with something far less trivial than your basic "scary person chasing me" nightmare.

I knew it was spiritual.  I didn't understand it- I wasn't sure how to break free from it at that point, since I had already "called on the name of Jesus- making hell tremble".  My mouth was bound (not literally) so I couldn't scream.   My body was trapped/paralyzed, so I couldn't jump up, or roll myself off the bed.  I assume- that since I was in a sort of (remember the movie Inception?) dream inside a dream state- that my words didn't reach the distance they need to reach.

GOSH!  I don't know.  I wish I could explain this with more clarity.

Anyway- I really need to just shorten the rest of this up....  I KNEW I was under spiritual attack.  I came to my breaking point when inside my dream, I had encountered far too many spirits to battle.  They were all "ganging up" on me; and I had no weapon.  Everything I knew to use, was.... essentially... bound  up.
It's like having  a burglar walk into your house, and your gun is locked away in a back closet or something.
No. Beuno'.

I jerked around and tried with everything in me to scream out "JESUS!!!!'  The bible says that all we have to do is call His name.  I knew that to be true from past experience.  Geesh.  I tried so hard.  Everything in me was horrified.  I was scared.

Finally- I got to open my mouth.  Sort of.  I started trying to say "JOSHUA!"  in my mind, as odd as it sounds if we're still referencing this little incident as a straight-up-nightmare, I knew that Joshua was Hebrew for "The Lord is my Salvation."

"Joshua" worked.  When I new I was finally awake, I panicked a little bit, and then composed myself a tad, and began to say "Jesus.  Jesus.  Help me.  Help me.  Jesus make them go away."

Joshua woke up after this.  I was so distracted from fear, that I couldn't do explain to him everything.  I just said "Please.  Pray for them to go away.  In Jesus name, pray to make them go away."

Good thing my hubs knows me.  He knew exactly what I meant.  And bless his heart- he got a bit trapped himself.  I repeatedly asked him to pray, but he stayed silent.  I couldn't understand what was stopping him; but he finally confessed "I just don't think I have the right to pray that.  I'm not where I should be....."

I KNEW for certain- it was JOSHUA that needed to pray the removal of the enemy out.
"You're the one with the authority!!!!"

He grabbed up his authority, told the junk to GO, in the name of Jesus... and back on to snoozer-ville I went.

(continued at another time)