Wings of Healing Worship Center

My Spiritual Warfare

Well it’s been a while since I’ve sat down to put my thoughts into this blog. Many things have happened, the passing of my dearest friend and wife Susan being one. The depression and anger that set in opened me to a great attack by the enemy. No one will probably believe the attacks I’ve had to deal with. You just never quite know the full extent of what the enemy can do to you when he gets into your head until it actually happens to you. I want to tell everyone some of what I went through because it is important to pay attention to your friends and family because you may recognize something in them that they don’t see in themselves. It took a few people to give their perspective of me before I realized the destruction that was going on in my life. When the mirror was aimed at me I realized that there was an ugly reflection looking back at me. I didn’t like the man I saw in the mirror but didn’t know how to get back to who I once was. The journey back seemed long and impossible to traverse and instead of taking that first step to get back on that path it just seemed like it was easier to stay right where I was at. Why not? I wasn’t doing anything bad.

That’s one of the many ways that the adversary the devil and his minions try to destroy us. His ways are to infiltrate our mind and use our weaknesses against us. Lies and deceptions are his weapons of destruction. In the end it will be by our own hand that causes our own self demise if we allow him to penetrate our thought process. This is why spiritual warfare is so deadly. No one sees it coming until they are smack dab in the middle of the battle. I felt confident in my relationship with Jesus. I felt unshakable, I think everyone who knew me thought I was unshakable. I always felt like a prayer warrior, undeniable in my faith with the courage to shout the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus from the highest mountain top for all to hear. I had no shame for my Jesus!

I’m still not sure how it all happened. Somewhere in the midst of my service to God I let my guard down. Perhaps it was depression, there was certainly a lot of it. Maybe it was anger, I had that going on as well. Whatever the weakness was in my armor the enemy was quick to exploit it. He got into my head and created great confusion. At times it felt as though every thought in my head was screaming out at once. I couldn’t concentrate. It was too complicated to pray and so I would just give up on prayer. I would try reading my bible looking for the Word of God that would help me but I just could not comprehend through the din and confusion. Even going to church didn’t seem to help. The screaming in my head would become so annoying that I just wanted it to stop. I would cry out to some of my friends but I couldn’t understand what they were telling me. They would give me scripture to meditate on and tell me to pray and fast. I just couldn’t get the screaming to stop long enough to allow me to do any of those things. I wanted it to stop! The screaming! I felt if it didn’t stop I was going to go crazy.

That’s when I began to devise ways to silence the screaming...those annoying thoughts that were spinning wildly through my head had to be silenced. One night I sat on the edge of my bed with a 9mm semi auto, loaded and racked. I sat there in silence staring at the gun laying on the bed thinking it could all be over in a matter of seconds. Then suddenly my cell phone chimed in with a message from my best friend. I cried out explaining that I was trying to end the screaming in my head. The friend caught on to my plan and talked me out of my ridiculous idea and began telling me of their situation and I began to minister to them. After that night it seemed like the screaming and confusion ended and for a short time. It did, but when it came back it came with a vengeance. I began to think of ways to numb myself so the screaming would be silenced. I thought about drinking liquor in excess. I considered going through my medications and seeing what combinations I could put together to numb myself. I can’t explain why I never acted on these compulsions other than to say it had to be the prayers of my friends.

One thing did seem to give me peace, music. When I would listen to the Christian music I had saved on my phone, I would experience moments of clarity. During this time frame of spiritual warfare I was losing sleep, having different health issues, straining relationships, things were just going bad all at once and it felt as if I could never get a foothold on solid ground. The most important thing that was working for me was my church. When I had given up on myself, my church never did. My friends kept praying for me when I felt I couldn’t pray for myself anymore.

It was my best friend again who aimed the mirror at me and made me see how ugly I was spiritually and another good friend from church who confirmed the image that I saw in that spiritual mirror. I was told in a not so very nice but needed way that I was being selfish. Selfish? Me selfish? Really? I never considered everything I was having to go through as selfish. I was also told to stop sitting there wallowing in sorrow! That I had to get moving forward and do what I was called to do! I have to say that caught my attention. My problem was I didn’t know how to pull myself out of the pit I was in. I just knew that the screaming was getting louder and the confusion worse each day and if it couldn’t be silenced I was going to end up dead. A friend from church told me how to anoint my house and pray and as I did so, slowly the screaming began to subside. Even when the noise in my head had cleared I still held doubts about ever serving God in the capacity I once did. I was able to pray and cry out to God with a passion I hadn’t felt in quite some time and I felt God would repair the ministry I had once abandoned in the din of confusion. It was my belief that God would repair it in His time, which I figured would be a couple of months down the road. I was surprised when that night as I attended church that God had answered and responded immediately.

So here I am tonight writing this. Why? Well for one as my testimony. I hope all who read this will stop and check friends and relatives. You just don't really know the battles some people are fighting. If we fail to recognize and reach out to help a friend in need we may lose them. It was that close for me. I contemplated it many times during this period and nearly acted on it once, but that’s all it would have taken. A mere second in time and an eternity in hell. I can tell you that just a simple text message, a short conversation, can make the difference between heaven and hell. Pound the throne room with every prayer you can because it counts. Leave the 99 and go after the one because that lost soul is as important as every soul prepared to enter the gates of heaven. Reach out! Someone needs your help! It may be the one whom you least expect to fall because even those who seem to be unshakable can let their guard down. Spiritual warfare is real people, it’s nothing to be scoffed at. Secondly I want to say that depression, anger, resentment, bitterness, and many other things will tear down your armor and leave you open for an attack. Forgiveness goes a long way to patching up distressed armor! Don’t let your relationships become strained, forgive one another, pray for one another, love one another. Be Christ like.

John 10:10 KJV

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Revelation 12:12 KJV

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Brother Scott Green