Category Archives: Spiritual warfare

Early Warning Signal – Discernment of the Unseen Realm

Today I had an “aha!” moment. For years I have wondered why I am so susceptible to getting “slimed” by evil, dark forces. For instance, I am having a normal, happy day. I encounter someone who is frazzled and stressed out. Without realizing it, I “pick up” their anxiety and discontent. I walk away feeling terrible.

I thought after years of following Jesus that I would be somewhat immune to this stuff. Not only am I picking up the anxiety the other person feels, but I am also burdened by the spirit of fear that is provoking their anxiety. Or sometimes it might be the spirit of control and manipulation that is pushing their anxiety buttons. Either way, I was innocently going about my day and suddenly I am weighed down by this darkness. It is a very vulnerable way to live.

Except now I understand! 🙂

When I get “slimed” or attacked mentally and emotionally by dark “energies”, my gift of discernment kicks in. Because I’m personally feeling the effects of this particular evil spirit’s assignment, I can identify it pretty quickly. And because it’s affecting ME, I have the authority to dispel its power – at least its power over me and my immediate vicinity. I also tend to release the opposite of whatever it was trying to bring – so if it was fear, I release peace. If it was bringing control and manipulation, I release freedom and liberty.

I just realized that my gift of discernment operates as an Early Warning Signal – kind of like a smoke alarm. When a smoke alarm goes off, it warns you that there’s a problem. It motivates you to take action immediately and put out the fire so that everyone will be safe.

In the same way, when I get “slimed” or affected by someone else’s negative assignment, my discernment kicks into high gear. “There’s something very wrong here!” it shouts. So I go to battle and take out whatever the enemy has engineered to hurt someone. If I was immune to attack, I wouldn’t know when there was trouble. Everyone else might be coughing from the “smoke”, but without an alarm it would take me a much longer to figure out what was wrong.

Wow, thank you Spirit of Truth for revealing this to me. It makes so much sense!

I have often walked into situations where the air felt “heavy”. If it is minor, I don’t respond. But when it is dense and bothering me, I take action. Evil “energies” – some people call them demons, entities, energies, vibes, spirits – it doesn’t matter to me. I just look at the results – is it positive or negative energy? The evil ones take away the joy and peace that should be ours. Life should not be full of stress and fear. So if they are bothering me, I remove them. That restores peace to a room, a home, an area.

I don’t remove them if they are not bothering me and I don’t take on things that are beyond my realm of authority. For instance, if I visit your home and you are anxious, I’m going to feel it. The air will feel “tense”. I will prevent it from bothering me by taking authority over it while I am visiting you, but it is your house. If you want to keep it, it will stay there with you. If you ask for my help, I will teach you how to remove it. But that is your choice. Some people are used to feeling anxious. It’s familiar. They wouldn’t know how to live without it. I’m not saying that is true of all anxious people – just some that I have encountered.

Now I will try being more thankful for this gift – instead of annoyed that everywhere I go, I get hit with stuff. It’s not easy being me. 🙂

How about you? Do you notice how much other people’s vibes affect your mood? Is it possible you are meant to “shift the atmosphere” where you are? Please comment below – I’d be very interested to hear your thought on this subject!

Spiritual Protection from Dark Forces & Evil Spirits

Rating: Educational

When I was new to the idea of confronting spiritual darkness, I met a couple who seemed to have a little more experience in this area. The wife could discern whether an object had a curse on it by holding it in her hand. The husband could discern spiritual activity (angels & demons) – he said he saw them like comic book characters.

When I met them (nearly 20 years ago), they reported having some experience in helping people get free of oppression from dark forces. I had very little experience so I listened to what they had to say. They seemed balanced – not flaky like other Christians I had known. They taught me some things that I still use to this day.

One of the principles they learned (from experience) was spiritual protection. They reported having really bad experiences of “backlash” after a ministry appointment unless they specifically prayed for spiritual protection. I have incorporated the prayer they taught me with other prayers the Holy Spirit has impressed on me from time to time.

Whenever you directly confront darkness or dark forces through prayer, intercession or in a ministry setting (i.e. praying for someone who is oppressed by evil), afterwards it is a good idea to pray something like this:

“I bind all Retaliation, Revenge, Retribution and Jealousy from off of me and everything associated with me. I cancel all witchcraft and any soulish prayers prayed concerning me or my family. I close every open door to the enemy’s realm and I seal them with the blood of Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your protection. In Jesus name, Amen.”

Obviously, there is no set formula – you can adapt or revise this prayer to suit your own needs. I have added some parts to it over the years based on my own experience. My friends used to call this “binding the three Rs”. Later they learned that they should add Jealousy. The 3 Rs is still a shortened way to refer to this. My husband and I have also found it helpful to pray this on a regular basis, regardless of what kind of ministry we have been doing lately.

Sometimes when we leave a specific location and are on the way home, I will feel impressed to “cancel any trailing or lingering spirits”. Sometimes I will get a specific impression to “cut off all communication devices of the enemy” and I may also cancel “any watchers or listeners”. A friend of mine has seen watchers and listeners – they are creepy. Just like in a real war in the natural, you might have these elements, right? So it makes sense to me that you might need to pray specifically against these in the spiritual war we are in.

Another couple I know have a habit of praying a “golden dome of protection”. This is particularly helpful if you are in a setting where you feel uncomfortable in your spirit, but you do not want to leave. I have prayed this at a restaurant, for instance. I ask God to fill this dome with His presence around our table and remove anything that does not come from Him. Immediately I feel at peace and I feel comfortable staying at the restaurant. It feels like a personal “force field”. I have found this very helpful and have used it when needed.

How about you? Have you found any specific prayers of protection that have been helpful? If so, please comment below. It is good for us to learn from each other – we all get stronger that way.

Many people are not aware of the importance of spiritual protection against “backlash” and they suffer from lack of knowledge – would you please share this post in your favorite social media as a way to bring awareness to this issue? Thank you! 🙂

Backlash and Bloodshed – Freaky!

Rating: Creepy

This memory keeps standing out in my mind so I guess I should share it next. It’s a little “out there” – it creeps me out whenever I think of it.

I was traveling for business. My brother happened to be in the same city, attending the wedding of an extended family member. He called me and said he was very worried about a certain sister’s safety. She had been at the event and then disappeared without telling anyone she was leaving. They later found out she had boarded a bus to go back to her home. This concerned him greatly because she had been telling him she was relieved to be away from home because she was in a very abusive relationship and the man had recently threatened to kill her. No one could understand why she suddenly left to return to him.

My brother is a man of prayer – when he is worried, his first defense is to intercede and ask God to intervene. He asked me to meet him to pray for this sister. We decided to go for a walk – there were too many people in the house and everyone was upset about the situation. We figured being outside would help us clear our heads and enable us to focus better in prayer.

As we walked, he did most of the praying. I just agreed. At one point, I “saw” this very, very large being above us. In comparison to its size, we looked like ants. I could see its legs like large columns going up and up. I sensed that it looked down at us, specifically at my brother, and it was annoyed at his prayers. The attitude conveyed was, “You think you have a right to pray for her safety? She’s mine!”

My brother interceded harder, asking God to save her life and protect her from the violence of the man she was going home to. He’s very bold when he prays. He prays with great authority and obviously he annoyed some very large being that was watching over this situation.

We finished praying. He walked me back to my car and I drove to my hotel. Even though we had closed out our time with prayers of protection and covering for ourselves, I had the uncanny feeling that this being was going to manifest in some way the next day at my job. I prayed about it several times that night, but I could not shake that feeling. I didn’t know what to expect. We had been praying against violence, bloodshed, the spirit of death, etc – anything that seemed related to the attack against this sister.

The next day at work, I was on the alert. I prayed on the way and I prayed when I arrived. I didn’t like knowing that somehow this spirit was going to show itself in my work day, but I was glad I had advance warning. I didn’t feel afraid – I just prayed for grace to know how to deal with it when it happened. For some reason, I didn’t feel I had the authority to block it from manifesting.

I was managing a small office of people. They needed an extra pair of hands to get a job done so the district manager had approved for a temporary labor office to send someone over. The man who arrived surprised me. He looked kind of like Santa Claus – he was older, overweight and had a white beard. The work assignment was physical labor. I explained this to him and asked if he felt he could do the work. I was a little concerned because he looked about ready for retirement, not a full 8 hours of physical labor in the sun of a very hot climate. He said he was fine and I sent him outside to be trained by one of our regular personnel.

About an hour and half later, he came walking into the office holding his left hand in his right hand and said, “Can someone help me please?” We all turned to see him – blood was dripping from his hands as he walked across the floor. I was shocked. Thankfully, the rest of the staff responded immediately. One of the office clerks had nurses training in her background and steered him toward the bathroom so she could see how bad the wound was and clean it up. Another staff member had training in blood borne illnesses and notified me that he knew how to clean up a blood spill correctly and proceeded to do so.

We had never had someone injured in this office before – at least not to my knowledge. We were all quite puzzled in how he could have hurt himself – and after only working for a little over an hour by himself. Thankfully, his wound was not serious. The office clerk got the bleeding stopped and bandaged him up from the first aid kit. I called the temporary labor office and our district manager for instructions on where to send him for treatment. I gave him the information and off he went.

As he left, I could not stop shaking my head. As soon as I ‘d seen the blood dripping on the floor, I’d known. This was a manifestation of that spirit of bloodshed and violence. I was very thankful it had been minor. That spirit seemed intent on intimidating me more than anything else – no real harm was done. The man would recover with a few minor stitches. I don’t know why this played out the way it did, but it made a definite impression on me.

Has anything this strange ever happened to you? What did you do? I’d love to hear stories from other people. I don’t often share these because most people have no frame of reference for something so odd.