It comes out of nowhere. It locks and it lands. And it leaves me defenceless at times, overwhelmed in varietals of confusion, dread, exhaustion, frustration, or despair, or a combination thereof.
Who really knows how to describe the flurry of the emotions that go on within the motion of spiritual attack? I’m often left flummoxed for a response in the moment of spiritual disarray. I can hear reason, and I may even be able to rally, and I know it’s not a thing of disobedience, because it is too overwhelming to overcome, as it sweeps through manipulating my countenance.
Usually, for me at least, the day after is a resurrection day. Many of us, however, have also had times where attacks occurred over a season, and we just were not able to recover. But clear of the pain of the day before, able again to see logically, I simply praise God that the storm has passed.
The most serious thing about attack is how nonchalantly it arrives on the doorstep, and how blindsided we are, having not anticipated it, let alone not having the wherewithal to diagnose and treat the situation at hand.
We are weak and we’re weary and we’re wary also. With defences down, any mounting of a defence is usually thwarted by the enemy, because he sees us coming, or we simply mount a defence out of our own pitiful strength, unaware of its futility.
Why is it that we trust our strength most when we are weakest?
At the time we should least trust our strength, when wisdom should kick in and say, “No, rest!” we don’t.
It always seems easy to arrange a defence against attack from hindsight. We may see how it approached. We may see the folly in our responding action—our reaction. We may see what would’ve been a more advised strategy in countering the attack.
But we ought not to judge ourselves harshly. How were we to know? With some of the Kingdom roles we play, why are we surprised that attack comes in the first place? We have placed our heads above the parapet wall. We are a target for the enemy. We therefore ought to see that attack is part of the scene we’re in. That it goes with the territory.
But then there are times when we face incessant attack for little or no reason that we can surmise for the enemy’s interest. There are many who have conditions who are targeted without mercy. These are the bravest of all. Especially when they look with sheer faith toward the skies of the God who made them for their purpose.
A right defence at the time of the attack is the silence of solitude of soul, which neither denies nor regales against the stormy, foaming seas of the struggle. Of course, this is easier conceived than performed.
So many times, I’ve failed to rest in a rest that feels like defeat but is actually a victory that the enemy cannot touch. But God is patient and kind and promises to help us when we seek a help we cannot of ourselves manufacture.
A right defence at the time of the attack is nothing we can manage on our own. Yet surprisingly, as we get out of our own way, as we acknowledge we’re at the end of our own strength, God is allowed to come through in the divine strength of the ages.
A right defence at the time of attack is about hearing God’s affirming and positive voice and taking no account of negative humans. But it is also listening to God’s voice in humans who have on account of God wisdom of the season.
The beauty in humanity within the trial of spiritual attack is the compassionate heart that swings by and simply listens to the groans that bear no resemblance to reason. They don’t need to, much as Paul put it in Romans 8.
The Presence of God is arrayed beautifully in speech that is unintelligible, in order to thwart the wise of this world, where fools for Christ wait patiently in expectation for the Spirit to arrive, within an afflicted person to heal them.
They know they heal not by their own hands, but by the compassion of the Spirit who works in them and through them.
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