2 Corinthians

The Positive Side of Illness, Fatigue, and Physical Pain

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I wrote this over a month ago in the midst of a physically trying moment and didn’t have the energy to edit it into a post.  I’m now 21 weeks pregnant, and have been feeling much better: nausea only in the evenings, less fatigue, and the comfort of feeling our little one move and remembering why I’m doing this.

This is what I wrote ten weeks ago:

I’ve pretty much been sick all eleven weeks of my pregnancy, minus a few great days here and there.  I’ve had the flu; I’ve had a long-lasting cough that threatened premature contractions; and the normal pregnancy symptoms (nausea, headaches, fatigue) have been enough to deal with on their own.

But while my tolerances have been stretched, this has also been an excellent opportunity for me to see my spiritual weaknesses and to fully depend on the Lord.

There is nothing like having the areas we most depend on ripped out from under us.  I’ve always been physically pretty healthy, and didn’t realize how much I’d pulled comfort and strength from my place of good health.  Having almost constant pain lately has been quite humbling.  I’ve also become aware of other areas in my spirit that need spiritual transformation, which likely would have gone unnoticed without this ‘forced fasting’.

For the first time, I think I’m understanding the spiritual directive to have joy within suffering–to count it my blessing when I experience trials (James 1:2-4, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Phil 4:11).  I’m not sure there’s a way to articulate this concept, but it is certainly a blessing to experience such a joy.  I have especially have fond memories of spending hours vomiting with intermittent praises to the Lord, and though I also don’t want that pain again anytime soon, it’s really quite amazing that I’d even think in such a way.

To my friends who are also facing physical trials: I want to encourage you not to pray immediately for healing or a ‘fixed’ circumstance, but to first press into the raw love of the Lord.  I have frequently been blessed with sudden immediate healing from the Lord upon praying–there is definitely a place for this and it can increase our faith in a miracle working God.  But let the Spirit lead you to pray before you assume you know what’s best.  I have occasionally been lead to pray for other things: for endurance and strength to face the trial, for the physical manifestation of the Lord’s love and peace, for wisdom and revelation of who He is, for heart, soul and spirit to be transformed into His nature, for the ability to rest in Him despite the circumstance, and so forth.  Sometimes the answers to heart issues are much more rewarding than the healing of the physical issues.

I pray we would not miss out on any of the Lord’s gifts, even when they come in painful packages.  There is a time and a season for everything under heaven (Eccl 3).

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Verses on Spiritual Warfare (Part One: Recognizing the Battle)

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As I was going through the most severe moments of spiritual warfare–this was as I was in the process of fully giving my life to Christ, which was not easily accepted by the devil–I began collecting verses to help me with the battle.

This first section is rather incomplete because the spiritual battle was quite easy for me to recognize; the spirits of darkness were in fact all over our apartment in obvious ways.

What did help me quite a bit was to recognize that there is an absolute line of truth and not-truth (good and evil) in the spiritual realm.  Coming from a mindset of New Age philosophy, I had not even considered this ‘black and whiteness‘ as a possibility, but as I started to read the scriptures, that’s exactly what I started to see.  And as I continued to spiritually clean our living space, the spiritual battle began to diminish a little at a time.

Verses on Recognizing the Spiritual Battle:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

“For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6).

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).

“For men will be lovers of self…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.  For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:2-7).

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

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Have you noticed the changes in the church?

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Some of you may have heard about or noticed a transition in the church–a “new breed” of Christians that are arising (especially out of the pentecostal type churches).  Well, there are actually two transitions: some of the church is beginning to adopt New Age doctrine (the emergent church), others of the church are moving into a greater move of the Holy Spirit (we’ll need this outpouring in order to fight the spiritual battle at hand; Acts 2:17-21).

The two transitions seem alike without prudent discernment of the spirits.  Many in the fundamentalist churches are confused or mad about the changes.  The high percentage of Christians throughout the denominations, I think, haven’t even noticed.

I want to make it clear that the Lord freed me FROM New Age thinking.  As a result, I recognize it seeping into the church more clearly than most, and I’m not about to fall back into that movement.  That said, God has power (much more power than the enemy!) and He wants to work through His people as a demonstration of His glory.  I’m sure I’ll discuss both sides in more detail in the future.

What the church needs is to be fully opened to the Holy Spirit, and fully closed to the multiple deceptive spirits.

Fortunately we know that when we ask God the Father to reveal Himself to us that we may know and love Him more, He will not give us deceptive spirits but His Holy Spirit in abundance (Mat 7:11, Luke 11:13).  As long as we’re plugged into the right God, we’ll have the right Spirit.  If you love the Lord, there is no reason to fear what He has for you–He loves you too!

On the other hand, some personalities are so good at being open to new things, that they willingly trust and want whatever friends, family, pastors, etc advertise as being excellent ways to connect to God.  When it comes to spiritual matters, we should never trust anything but the Word of God (Psalm 146:3, Jer 9:4-6, Mic 7:5, Acts 17:11, Prov 3:5).  There are already many false prophets in the world, so it’s very necessary that we test every spirit to know whether or not it’s from God (1 John 4:1-6 and 2 Cor 11:3-4, 13-15).

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It’s a spiritual battle

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Last night and earlier today I was under intense spiritual attack.  It began after I’d experienced great victory with the Lord, and it was so sudden and unexpected that I was feeling weak, depressed, lonely, physically sick, exhausted, …, all at once and couldn’t quite remember how to deal with it (even though I counsel my good friends on spiritual warfare on a regular basis).

I reached out to a few people for prayer, I considered that I should be praying for strength, or taking authority over the lies of the enemy, and yet I continued to engage negative thoughts and wallow.

Then a friend spoke to me and mentioned something like, “it’s okay, we all feel down sometimes”.  I can’t explain what happened in my spirit, but it was like Truth rose up inside me and my spirit shouted, “No! It’s not true!  It’s a spiritual battle!  I’ve been up against this before and won!”

Too often we give our flesh credit for what is happening in the spiritual realm.  But Ephesians 6:12 says “Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  When we feel anger, or sadness, or fear, or hopelessness or any other negative thought it is a spiritual thing.  There are deceptive spirits speaking lies to us.  It doesn’t matter how believable those negative thoughts may seem–they are all lies!

But 2 Corinthians 10 encourages us that if we have chosen Jesus Christ as our Lord, then we have spiritual weapons available to us through the Holy Spirit: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

Our job is to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).  When we hear ourselves thinking a thought that is in any way negative or outside the nature of our Lord, we choose to cast it aside.  We recognize that it’s false, claim the truth, and let the truth sink into our spirits setting us free (Phil 4:8).

This is exactly what I chose to do this evening, and I’ll testify that there is nothing better than the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), and complete freedom in the Lord.  If you’re a Christian, this is absolutely available to you all the time, no matter the circumstance; but you do have to choose to resist the temptation and lies of the devil!

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What about the heathen who have never heard?

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I used to justify that Jesus is not the only way to heaven with the emotional plea that surely a god who is love would not judge everyone based on one ‘truth’ since it’s not culturally and readily available to everyone–that would be unjust after all, and the Bible says that God is a just god.

The truth is that Truth exists outside of what we feel or choose to believe. I’ll spend a lot of time in future posts breaking down the little bit that I know about who Jesus is and how I know. For now, let’s leave it at this: we have a very limited understanding of who God is and how He speaks, so let’s try not to limit what we think He can/will do.

2 Corinthians 5 says that everyone has a groaning in their hearts to be reunited with the Father in His heavenly dwelling place. We also have the promise that those who seek the Lord with their whole hearts will find Him (Jer 29:13, Prov 8:17).

The events that happen between the passing thought that something is missing, the wondering what or who is out there, and actually finding that there is a god and that He’s a specific God, is unique for each person—perhaps even drastically unique for some individuals (like the heathen).  I’d like to share a very small portion of my own experience as an example:

Sometime after my third serious suicide attempt—and, by-the-way, I did know there was a God and that Jesus was God at this point; I’d even experienced personal miracles—I had a very unusual encounter with the Lord.

You see, I had been walking in direct disobedience to what I knew was God’s will for me, and yet, was so charmed by the apparent benefits of the devil’s power (I had, somewhat knowingly, made an agreement with the devil) that I wasn’t totally convinced that Jesus was the One I wanted as Lord over my life.

Yet in a moment of intense emotional pain, I walked into my bedroom after an early-release day of high school when the whole neighborhood was quiet, and in my heart felt a groaning that something in my life was not and could not be fulfilled the way I was living it. I don’t remember if I went as far as to make an audible prayer at this moment, but my heart definitely cried inside me something like: where is the Lord!?

Then, I began to hear music—like an orchestra was marching right outside my window (not just a ‘band’ but a full orchestra!). It was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard, and music was so important to me.

I started looking out my windows for the source of this wonderful music, and it was overwhelming loud, but there was nothing to see.  The street was completely empty; no cars in any driveway; nobody.  And it sounded live, but I began checking to see if maybe a radio was on, only to find that, no, they were off.

So I listened.

I laid down on my bed and listened.

And as I did, a man’s voice, deep and gentle, flooded me.  It was an audible voice, and I knew immediately it was the Lord’s.

He sang to me, accompanied by the music, and along with the song came pictures—it was like a panoramic video came before my eyes as small fragments of my life shown in high speed across my vision (likely my entire life, though I could only remember a handful of the images afterward).  To the best of my knowledge, the voice of the Lord was singing to me the song of my life.  It knew and made audible my every desire, my every anxiety, my every hurt—and I remember feeling as if my whole subconscious (which I had been longing to get to through hypnosis) was being audibly presented before me.

This lasted for several hours—I was surprised when I finally arose to see my clock.  And of all the images He showed me, one stood out more than the others: a short glimpse of friends gathering and laughing at an outdoor wedding reception (I could only see the group from their waists down, ironically, but held onto the vision knowing it would occur at my wedding)—and, yes, the vision was fulfilled when I got married several years later.

There’s more to the story, and I didn’t actually return to the Lord directly after this experience, but I’ll leave the other angles and details for another time.

So, back to that poor heathen who wants to know God but is too far physically and culturally from the Bible distribution centers and missionaries…

Why is it so hard to believe that if God can speak to each of us in any way He desires, He can’t also speak to this person?

So, why is it so hard to believe that if God can speak to each of us in any way He desires, He can’t also speak to other people?

He could choose to speak through a missionary, or a suddenly appearing Bible, or creation itself… Or He could speak through an angel, a dream, a vision, or even His audible voice.

Those thoughts about ‘what if somebody else won’t find the Lord’ is preventing YOU from finding Him. Have faith! He’s going to draw those “heathens” to Himself using their environment—just as He’s drawing you to Him using yours! Remember: the Lord’s people will come from every tribe, tongue, people group, and nation—and that means EVERY (Rev 5:9).  There may not be a many in every nation who find Him, but He promises that each person has equal opportunity to search for and understand the truth, even if the circumstances are vastly different!

So, let’s talk about you… You may be pondering my story thinking: ‘My life sucks; I’ve tried to kill myself too; why wouldn’t He have spoken to me audibly?’ Or perhaps you just don’t feel like you hear Him and are wondering if maybe He didn’t “choose you” (He did: 2 Peter 3:9!).

Let me encourage you in this: if you are thinking about the Lord—even to wonder if He doesn’t exist—if you are asking yourself all the difficult questions about who He is, and why He did or didn’t do something, or whatever, then you ARE being pursued by the Lord. He is trying to talk to you! You may have so much traffic, so many voices, in your spirit that you’re confused about which voice is His, but KEEP LISTENING, keep seeking answers! You don’t need the audible voice of God, you just need an attentive ear!

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