At times we might question our faith, because we seem to “lose” our peace often. In fact, we could be exactly where God wants us, but Satan (via his demons) is attacking us so often, we mistake our temporary distress for a lack of spiritual faith. You might even be doing many great things for God’s kingdom and growing in your faith, and Satan makes these attacks to discourage you from growing more and doing more for God’s Kingdom. There are many reasons why Satan attacks us, but these times can leave us emotionally and spiritually exhausted. We might think we are weak in our faith, when we are working hard for the Lord and truly (and reasonably) exhausted. These attacks may feel so terrible we do not realize we are doing our genuine, godly best.
We are like a soldier in the trenches of warfare. The soldier may be lobbing bombs at the enemy. But she may get hit by shrapnel. She may be kept up late fighting, and she can become exhausted in mind and body. While spiritual warfare is not obvious like physical warfare on the battle field, this war is still very real and the results can be as exhausting. So let’s look at some reasons why Satan will attack us.
When we commit to read our Bibles more, pray more and listen to Christian music more, we will grow. Satan does not want that. He wants us to sin. If we are ministering to family, friends, and acquaintances (at stores, the gym, work and other places), Satan knows our spiritual growth will impact these people. People could come to the Lord, surrendering their lives for God’s glory. Satan despises God and despises us (because God loves us, and we work for God’s glory). Our commitment and action upsets Satan. He may not want you to know he is attacking. He might use subtle methods. Perhaps you fall asleep while reading your Bible. People might call while you are praying or listening to Christian music. Satan can even inflict a sense of grumpiness in your heart so you feel irritable about everything and begin to complain instead of rejoice in the Lord.
Satan does not want your children (if you have them) to know the Lord, so Satan may cause you to be grumpy towards your children and not recognize your irritability. Or Satan may attack your child. We are naïve if we think Satan cannot physically harm our children. While Satan had to ask if he could physically attack Job, God did say, “Yes,” (Job 2:6). But Satan was not allowed to kill Job. Still, the physical illness caused Job much distress and made it harder for him to praise God and enjoy peace. For example, in Job 3:1, we read “After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” Job just could not sing God’s praises at this time. He was too hurt and exhausted. Satan can and will do this with our children.
Our children might have temporarily walked away from the Lord, or they may have briefly turned from God and dabbled in the occult (direct witch craft, but also astrology/zodiac, palm reading, séances, channeling spirits, psychic readings, magic charms, Tarot cards, casting spells, fortune telling, making a hex with the hand, and more). Even if they have returned to the Lord, Satan is angry. He once had this child, and he wants her back. He still claims her. This happened to someone I love. She got into some occult things, due to involvement with some unsaved extended family members who encouraged it (and my husband thought it was just fun).
I did my best to stop it, but because my husband wanted it, I had to tread carefully. I prayed fervently, and thankfully she told me when she became frightened after seeing and hearing demons in her room. She even had nightmares. I had to anoint the room and pray over it and cast out the demon and tell it this was Jesus’ room. By my authority, the demon had to leave, but any time she got into the occult items again, the demon was invited back. I prayed and fasted and spoke truth into her life. But she had to make the choice to give this up. I could not make this decision for her.
Eventually she became disgusted with the occult and gave it up entirely. She began to read her Bible again and prayed again. However Satan is still very angry he has lost her. He does subtle things to attack her. Once, in a two-week span, she had a toe crushed, and then a bee sting on her foot, and either of these could have kept her from dancing in a show she was scheduled for. I prayed for her, (and helped her with healing balms and ice), and by God’s grace she healed and could dance in her show. But I realized these were small ways Satan was striking back at her. This was spiritual warfare.
Another friend, a strong Christian, said she was involved in some occult matters when she was young. She suffered nightmares too. Eventually she also renounced all involvement in the occult, but even now Satan tries to stir her up with an occasional nightmare, which she is able to pray against. She also said she will not get close to anything that can have evil spiritual sides, including Yoga. Some Christians say Yoga is fine, but we do need to know Yoga has spiritual ties and the exercise poses represent Hindu gods, and animals the Hindu worship. Many people stay away from Yoga, because it opens a door for Satan to come into their lives, due to past involvement in the occult. I will not tell anyone they should or should not become involved in Yoga. I made the decision to not be involved, due to the spiritual risks. Satan already had a hold on my friend, and she does not want to open any doors for Satan, so she does not practice Yoga, like me.
If we harbor anger and hatred in our hearts, Satan also has a foothold in our lives (Ephs. 4:26-27). Jesus said we are forgiven when we forgive others, (Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”). When we live in unforgiveness, we grieve the Holy Spirit, (Eph. 4:30). It is very bad to lose his help, since the Holy Spirit helps us fight our battles (Roms. 8:26-27 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”) Just like a loner soldier who will not work with the other soldiers, she will be attacked. The same goes for us when we grieve the Holy Spirit and harbor hidden sins or unforgiveness towards others.
Yet so often we have not involved ourselves in the occult. We have forgiving hearts and have fully surrendered our hearts to Jesus. We confess our sins daily, and we genuinely seek God’s grace. The Holy Spirit lives in our hearts. He helps us fight our battles.
So why do these gals suffer spiritual warfare when they are right with God? As I alluded to earlier, Satan is angry for just this reason. We are powerful. Satan can attack us when we are weak and involved in the occult or full of sin. But Satan also wants to attack us when we are strong, because we pose an enormous threat to his kingdom.
We can rebound after an attack when we are strong in the Lord, but only if we discern these are spiritual attacks and don’t blame this on our weaknesses. These attacks can come harshly and often or they can be cloaked, so we do not realize bad things happening are from the devil. Someone I love is emotionally unstable and prone to anger fits. He often accuses me of things I have not done and makes demands that are very hard to meet. His accusations and insults throw me off guard, and at times I don’t realize this is spiritual warfare. Satan is a liar, and when nothing another person says is rational I must not try to defend myself, because this person is influenced by Satan. With healthy people, if they think I did something wrong, they come with a kinder disposition, not yelling and accusing. In those cases, I calmly explain what I did, and both sides (the other person and I) work it out to find peace and contentment. But with this angry (unsaved) person, he comes without any ration (he says lies and some are wildly wrong) and there is nothing true or kind I can tell him to calm him. Even if I point what I have and have not done, he still rages and gets even angrier. This is spiritual warfare, and this man is being used as Satan’s puppet.
Because I grew up in a home with an unstably angry dad, I learned to fear loud, angry men. So often I rushed off to appease the angry men I encountered, whether relatives, bosses or husband, or neighbor, or coworker. But I am learning that I must not give in to my fear. Satan wants me to fear, but God does not (2Tim1:7 “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”) Sadly many angry men love to frighten a woman, because it gives them a sick sense of power. And they can use a woman’s fear to manipulate her.
As such, I urge women, if you know you have a tendency towards fear, let us join together to fight this terror! God has been using the Bible and some of my strong Christian friends to show me these areas of weakness where I do not realize Satan uses these people to manipulate or even scare me. These godly women have inspired me with God’s word (so much like Jonathon who helped David find strength in the Lord, 1Sam.23:16). They see the manipulation others may use against me and point it out. And best of all, the Holy Spirit is ministering to me about this fear others try to use against me.
Ever since I began to memorize Scripture, I also learned to better recognize when I was feeling these strong emotions, which began as confusion. I cannot think straight after one of those angry tirades. Then I realize (hidden under the confusion) I am afraid. Strong emotions cloud our rational (logical) side and our connection to the Lord. We need to recognize this tactic of Satan. When we feel confused and cannot sort out what we are feeling and cannot come up with a good plan of action, we must stop. These manipulative people want to rush us to action—either to laugh at us as we make mistakes or to get us to do things for their pleasure and to our detriment. Feeding another person’s ego (his or her flesh) is a sin these people want for themselves, but we have a right to resist. I am not saying that if you gave in to such a demand out of fear, you were sinning, either. Work that out with God. I see THEIR sin, and in our case our weakness. God can tell you if it was a sin. Sometimes we are doing our best in a spiritually weak state. I just cannot judge a gal who is afraid. But I can come along side her and encourage her to become strong. I am learning!
So what does a gal do when she realizes she is confused with someone breathing down her neck making demands. You can stop. Even if you must tell the other person, “I must go to the bathroom,” then do so. It is not a lie. You can sit down there if you want, but I am urging you to get away so you can cry out to God. He is amazing, but he knows how slowly our bodies and minds work. Please realize he may not calm you in just one second. It takes time. Remember times when you just missed having a terrible accident in traffic and how badly it scared you. Well, your endocrine system could not calm down quickly. The adrenalin and cortisol have to gradually wane in our frail bodies.
So these emotional scares also take time to undo. But we can tell God, “I am scared. I am angry. I am offended.” Or “I am confused.” Then you can cry out to him, “Please help me know what to do next.” If you have memorized Scripture about fear, begin to quote it. If you have the Scripture written on papers, go get them and look them up. For as long as you can, stay away from the situation or person until you can find some calm. God will begin to give you ideas. Perhaps you are forced to back down in some ways with this difficult person. Perhaps there will be some bad things that happen if it is a doctor’s report and a scary diagnosis. Whatever has caused this distress, you can go to God. He has answers.
For me when this angry man attacked again, even when I had found calm after the encounter, I was sad about what this man wanted to take away. But I thought about how heaven is my true home. Here on earth there will be troubles (John 16:33). This is not the place where my life will be trouble free. That may sound silly, but it helped. Then I thought of the roof over my head. I am well fed and not cold. Recently I had read about Paul’s terrible suffering (2Cor.11:27 “I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.”) and I realized many persecuted Christians are living in those conditions daily. My own struggle did not seem as big. I thought of my many blessings. I also thought of my relationship with the Lord. No one can rob me of that joy (John 16:22b). I also began to praise God. The more I pushed myself to praise him, the more joyfully and naturally I praised him. As my spirit calmed, my joy and mental clarity returned. I could recognize this man was but a puppet of Satan. Yes, he hurt my heart, but not my body. He used evil words. But God did not let this man steal my joy. Gradually my peace returned.
I did not sin, despite the awful distress I experienced. Feeling stressed, hurt, scared or confused when someone verbally attacks us is not a sin. Remember what Paul said in 2 Cor. 7:5-7, “For when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me, so that my joy was greater than ever.” We will feel these emotions. We will only sin if we do not let God help us sort this out. If we respond in anger lashing at the person opposing us, or if we fall into fear and rush off to please this person instead of asking God what he wants—these actions likely are sin or will lead to sin. Initially not having peace is not a sin. There will be stresses like these in our lives. And these attacks can come when we are living in close fellowship with God.
Thinking we are too weak or sinful when we feel stressed by these attacks is actually another attack of the devil. He wants us to blame ourselves and blind us to the loving Father who wants to help us. He always wants us to focus on ourselves, such berating ourselves for our worry or distress. Don’t berate yourself, but accept your fragile human state. Jesus knows our weaknesses and he can relate to us (Hebs. 4:15-16 “ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”) Instead look at your feelings and thoughts and tell them all to God. Keep telling him how you feel, and what you are thinking. Don’t even worry about speaking in complete sentences, or using nice words. If you have to tell God, how you feel in rough words he understands. That might sound harsh to you, but do what you can to get those feelings and thoughts out and given to God. He will listen. Those strong feelings after an attack can come out. Satan wants to bottle you up so you deny how you feel. Don’t let him do that.
But also don’t stay in the fear. Get those Bible verses about fear and about over coming fear. Get the verses about God’s constant provision. These are not just pretty words that look nice on a card. These words have power. Speak them, out loud if you can, or in your head if you don’t have privacy. The more you speak them, the more you will believe them.
This is what God has been doing for me. I am not causing these attacks. God has clearly shown me I am not harboring some hidden sin. These attacks are not God’s discipline. At times he does discipline me. But God is showing me when I am spiritually attacked. These recent (very harsh) attacks were from Satan, and were not meant by God to discipline me. God can use the attacks for His glory, but he did not send them, and he does want me to find His peace. Human free will means some people will mistreat us, at times even as puppets of Satan. But God can bring good into our lives, because we are walking with him.
This post could get terribly long, so I need to end here. If you liked this post and would like to hear more about spiritual warfare and specifically about peace in the midst of Satan’s attacks, please let me know in the comments section.
Likely I will experience more attacks, and the Holy Spirit will teach me more, so in a later (future) post I can share more. For today, I want to close by saying God has a good plan for your life, despite Satan wanting the worst possible plan. Cling to the Lord, for we gals can get through these hard times of attacks. We can lean on each other, in prayer and encouragement and lift each other up when we are attacked. May the Lord bless you!