Spiritual Interference

It’d been a week of continual spiritual battle. Things going wrong; discouragement and anxiety threatening at every turn (after telling at least two people in the past month that I simply do not suffer from anxiety anymore); and a heightened awareness of the enemy, regarding whom God has said, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8, KJV). And so very early Saturday morning, I sat down in the front room and turned on the lamp, intent and expectant about meeting with God on the matter. I know that the verse above goes on to instruct us, “Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset]—rooted, established, strong, immovable and determined” (AMP).

A verse came to mind: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Corinthians 10:4, KJV). Having a good idea of where it was, I flipped through my Amplified Bible until I found the place. Beginning partway through the third verse, I read aloud, changing a few words to turn it into a prayer: “Lord, by your help, I will not act according to the flesh—on the low level of worldly motives and as if invested with only human powers. For though I walk and live in the flesh, in a physical body, I am not carrying on my warfare according to the flesh, the old unredeemed nature, and using mere human weapons.

“For the weapons of my warfare are not physical (weapons of flesh and blood), but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, inasmuch as I refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God; and I lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ, the Messiah.”

I found myself in the tangible presence of God through declaring His word, and I continued to sit, reading special bits here and there, praying for various people as they came to mind. I was reminded of the reality of spiritual warfare, that the enemy and his interference are real. I was reminded, too, that God is much greater and actually allows challenges and even attacks to come against us so that we will draw closer to Him and also exercise our spiritual muscles. In less than 24 hours, I was going to need all the muscle my faith could muster.

One of the things I had been working on in recent days was editing a term paper for Melissa. She is in Tokyo for the second-to-last semester of her master’s degree. (The students are encouraged to get professional editing help on these major assignments, so this is not cheating!) I had done a first edit, gone over it with her in a long phone conversation, and then sent the edited version back to her. She still had several parts to revise and complete, pictures to insert, and so on. The paper was due Monday morning, Tokyo time. As we compared schedules to figure out how and when to do the final edit, I realized I would have to do a couple hours of intense work in the middle of the night, very early Sunday morning my time. Then I would need, I thought, about an hour on the phone with Melissa. I am usually up for a few hours in the middle of the night anyway, so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

I went to bed in good time Saturday night and was asleep by 10:00. Three hours later I was awake. I texted Melissa and she responded immediately, saying her work was complete and she would email it right away. By 1:30 I had fixed a snack and was settled at the computer. I went to work, correcting typos, suggesting some better word choices, and rearranging some sentence structures. Focussed and intent, I plowed through the pages and was done about an hour and a quarter later. Popped her a text, asking her to call. She didn’t respond.

I got my bowl of porridge and went and sat in the front room with my Bible. That didn’t last long. I was trying to stay serene, but I was starting to get really tired and frustrated. I tried phoning, then sent another text message. No luck. I messaged her on Messenger and WhatsApp, and I emailed her as well. Nothing. I couldn’t believe this. It was our last chance to do this, and my internal battery had very little charge left.

I felt God telling me to get on my knees and use the time to pray. I flipped open the church Facebook page on my phone and began to pray through the various prayer requests. The social media site was a good tool to keep my tired brain on track. But every few minutes I would find my mind wandering and fretting, wondering why Melissa wasn’t calling. Each time I would hear God clearly say in my heart, “Stop fretting. It’s a waste of energy. Use this time to pray.” Over and over He prompted me to get back on track.

By the time Melissa phoned, it was a few minutes before 4:00, over an hour after I had started texting her, and I was drained. It was difficult to not let my frustration speak. She apologized as she told me she had been at a Sunday evening church service with a friend and gone for a bite to eat afterward. She sounded cheerful and refreshed.

I emailed her the edited copy and waited until she saw it in her inbox. Then the phone went dead. She texted: “I think my WiFi just died.”

“Oh dear!” I replied.

She said she was going to walk to the train station to see if there was WiFi there. Then she added, “Weird that I can still text though.”

Yeah, that was weird.

I prayed against what I perceived to be interference from the enemy. I waited. Five minutes went by; then the phone rang again.

She was seated on the concrete floor of the station, back against a wall, computer in her lap, and phone in hand. She opened the document. But we had been connected less than a minute when suddenly I couldn’t hear her anymore. I called and called her name. The call still appeared to be connected, but for all intents and purposes the phone was dead. Just as I touched the end-call button, I heard the whistle of a train. If only I had waited another second.

I went upstairs and peeked quietly into the bedroom. Greg was awake, his iPad screen lighting up his face. “My call with Melissa has just been cut off for the second time,” I said. “Would you pray with me? I think we need to take authority over the enemy.” I paused. “Before we pray though, I just want to renounce my anger and frustration. I also renounce self-pity. Lord, I lay this all down. Thank you for the privilege of helping my daughter with this. Thank you that I have the opportunity to use the gifts you’ve given me to serve someone else, especially her.”

Greg prayed with me against the powers of darkness; then my phone, still in my hand, rang again. “Hi honey,” I said, waving at Greg and heading back down the stairs.

We were on the phone for two hours. (Thank God for free WiFi calling!) It was shortly after six o’clock when we wrapped up, both very pleased with the results. Now I just had to email back to her the copy with all the changes in it. She would tidy up a few details and then, at school in the morning, print it and turn it in.

I was so fatigued that I was trembling. I had been up—and working intensely—for five hours. My brain was reeling and trying so hard to hang in for just a few more minutes. Because I was so exhausted, I made a point of speaking aloud, to both Melissa and myself, everything I was doing, to keep myself on track. As a result, I know exactly what I did, as I can still hear my words.

“Okay, honey,” I said, “I’m going to save it and close it so I can attach it to an email. Okay, saving, control s,” and I carefully touched the two keys. I opened a new email to Melissa and attached the file. As I always do, I opened the attachment before sending, to make sure it was the right document. The first thing my eyes fell on was the title of the paper, which was the first thing we had had to correct. It was no longer corrected.

“Oh no,” I said quietly. I began to scroll down the pages. All the highlighting was there that I had done between 1:30 and 2:45, all the spots I had wanted to go over with Melissa. But none of our corrections showed. “Dear God, help me,” I murmured.

“What’s happening, Mom?” Melissa asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just give me a few minutes.” I went into the document’s properties, which showed me its history, when it had been created, accessed, and saved. Yes, 1:30. That was when I first received it from Melissa and saved it on my computer. Yes, 3:57. That was when Melissa finally phoned me back and I’d saved and sent her my changes and suggestions. Yes, 6:10. That was just a couple of minutes ago, when I’d saved all our work of the last two hours.

I clicked on the 6:10 version. None of the changes we had made together were showing. None of our two hours of work had saved.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Melissa said. “I can probably remember most of the changes. You need to go to bed.”

“Honey,” I answered, “we need to pray.” I got up from my stool and began to pace around my little office. “Devil,” I said, “You may not steal this work from us. You are a thief; that’s what Jesus called you. You come to rob and kill and destroy. You cannot take this from us. We are not ignorant of your devices. We command, in the Name of Jesus, that you put it all back.

“Melissa,” I said then, “I’m going to go get Dad.”

Greg was still lying awake. I quickly filled him in. He declared his authority in Jesus, over the enemy, and began to pray in the Spirit. When he spoke again in English, he said, “God’s Word is forever settled in heaven.” Then he added, “I think that’s a ‘word.’”

I didn’t get the significance of that scripture in this situation; it just seemed to me to be a powerful proclamation of God’s power, authority, and eternalness.

I went back downstairs and sat down in front of my computer, looking at the mess in front of me.

“What are you going to do, Mom?” Melissa asked.

“I’m going to start over,” I said. “I’ll be able to remember as I go through it.”

“You can’t, Mom. You’re too tired.”

I closed the 6:10 document. I opened it again. Greg appeared in my office. He sat down on a chair, praying quietly. I looked at the text. What?

That first word in the title was correct. What?! I scrolled timidly down, checking each highlighted part. I’d left the markings so Melissa could easily see where the changes had been made. When she was all done, she would be able remove all those different colours and markings with a few clicks. Now these highlights allowed me to quickly see each change we had made together, and wonder of wonders, all our changes were intact.

I thanked God profusely, all my gratitude inadequate to express my relief. “Melissa, I’m going to save it under a new name so there’s no confusion,” I told her. When I’d first saved it at 1:30, I had added “Mom’s Edit” in front of the name of her file. Now I hit “Save As” and changed the title to “Mom’s Final Edit.” I attached it to a new email and sent it off to Melissa. We waited until it had arrived in her inbox and she’d opened and checked it; then we said our goodbyes.

“Would you come back to bed and hold me until I fall asleep?” I asked my dear husband.

“Yes,” he said, “I was planning to.” He knew I was going to need that. I crawled gratefully into bed and into my husband’s embrace. My body and soul were distraught with fatigue, now that the battle was over. With a great sense of relief, I entered into rest under the spiritual covering that God has provided for a wife through her husband. I fell into a deep sleep and never even stirred when Greg disentangled himself and got up to go to church.

Part II

Throughout that day, once I got up again, I found myself pondering the scripture Greg had used: “God’s Word is forever settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89, KJV). Later, when I was making supper, I told him I wanted to ask him about it. “But,” I said, “first let me tell you what I’ve been thinking, and then tell me if it lines up with what you sensed about it.

“God creates by His Word, by speaking things into existence. What He creates does not pass away, and neither does His Word. We all, by virtue of the fact that we are created in the image of God, carry a degree of that power in our words, and a degree of that eternalness. Not that that essay was a spiritual article per se, but both Melissa and I centre our lives on God, walking and talking with Him, so there is an eternal component to what we think and say and write. Although the enemy tried to lie to us and trick us into believing that he could steal our words, he could not, especially when we called his bluff and asserted our authority in Christ over him.”

“That’s right,” he said. And then he added a bit ironically, “And it was a Word document.”

I was eager to write about the whole experience, but now I had doubts coming in: Had I just been so tired that I opened the wrong document? Was the spiritual side of it all just in my imagination? So when I finally got to my computer again, about 24 hours after my intense editing session with Melissa, I did not start to write; instead, I prayed: “Lord, I really need to know if my original perception of this incident was correct. I don’t want to write a testimony of Your power and goodness that isn’t really even true. I need You to show me somehow if I am mistaken about this. Did the enemy really interfere with my technology?”

I decided to carefully go over the various versions of the document as well as the emails that had gone back and forth between Melissa and me. First, I thought, I will open that 6:10 document. Early Sunday morning, when I had first attached it to an email and opened it to verify it, it showed none of our edits. After we three had prayed and I’d closed and reopened it, the changes were all there. So now I checked the versions. There was the one saved at 1:30, before I did any work on it. It was saved again at 3:57, just before I sent it to Melissa so we could work together on the spots I had highlighted. And the 6:10 version, which I’d saved before trying to send all our final changes to Melissa . . . was not there. What? That was not possible. I had definitely saved it and then closed and opened it several times, after which I’d saved it again using the “Save As” function, renaming the file before sending it off at 6:30 a.m.

Thoroughly mystified, I now began to check the record of emails. There was only one from Melissa, in which she’d sent me her document at 1:09 a.m. That was the one I’d saved at 1:30. And then after I’d made my own changes, I’d sent it back to her at . . . I opened up my Sent Items . . . And there was nothing there. The only email showing during that time frame was the one I’d sent at 3:27, frustrated, after waiting 45 minutes for her to respond to my text saying I was ready to get to work with her: a brief and rather frustrated “Hello?”

And yet when she had finally called, I’d saved and sent my document at 3:57. But it simply wasn’t there. This wasn’t possible. I texted Melissa:

“Very strange. There is no evidence of my emailing you the document around 4:00 a.m. when we began our edit. Does it still show in your inbox?”

She answered, “I don’t see it.”

And yet she had sat with her backside on the cold, hard concrete of the train station floor for two hours with that very document on her laptop, while I had sat bleary-eyed in my office, and we had edited that document together, the document which now appeared to have been neither sent nor received. I was satisfied now that God had clearly shown me, there had been some serious spiritual shenanigans going down. I felt free now to write the story about this other-worldly interference.

As if God felt I needed further proof of this kind of meddling, there was another weird incident about 48 hours later. Again I was up very early in the morning. I sat down to read my Bible. Picking up where I’d left off last time, I didn’t get any further than one verse. It made me think of Melissa. She had texted the night before, asking for prayer. The essay was safely turned in, but she was so frustrated and discouraged now with the third member of their group, who had not at all been pulling his weight in the preparation of their final presentation.

The verse I read had a powerful application to Melissa’s unruly emotions in this struggle, so I decided I should send it to her. I began to dictate a text: “I am having a reading along with my porridge before heading back to bed. I am in Mark 8:34, the Amplified Version. ‘If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself—forget, ignore, disown, lose sight of himself and his own interests—’

The next phrase was “and take up his cross,” but before I could record it, the screen on my phone went black, then returned to the desktop. I was immediately in warfare mode: “I cut off your interference, devil, in the Name of Jesus. Ha, devil, you just make me believe in the reality of God all the more, and once again He will show His power over you. And furthermore, you are only serving to convince me that this is an important message for Melissa.”

Although I might have been tempted to be frustrated, what I was trying to send Melissa was the very antidote to frustration. The irony was not lost on me, and I refused to fall into that trap. I patiently began again. I got as far as I’d got the first time, then again, just before I said “and take up his cross,” again the screen went blank and returned to the desktop. This happened not just twice, but a third time, a fourth time, and a fifth time. I continued to pray against the enemy and to guard myself against discouragement and frustration. Now I changed my strategy. I dictated a short phrase and sent it right off, then another one and another one until I finally finished what I wanted to say—and what I felt God wanted me to say.

In the end, this is the message I sent: “‘If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself—forget, ignore, disown, lose sight of himself and his own interests—and take up his cross.’ Melissa, I am thinking of the frustration and discouragement you were struggling with last night, and the things I have been facing this week. Let’s not wrestle with these things, these negative emotions, these sometimes-demonically-fueled temptations; let’s deny them place, forget them, ignore them, disown them, lose sight of them. And take up our cross . . .

“Even sending this message has become a battle and a lesson—” and I explained what had happened.

“God seems to be showing me, ever since Sunday morning with you, how the enemy can mess with our technology. That’s why I’ve had to send the message in little chunks, sending each bit before it disappeared, praying and taking authority. Whew! Sometimes nothing is simple.”

Of course, I shared this with Greg later.

He doesn’t like to go about bashing the devil like a redneck firing a shotgun randomly into the night with no idea of where or what the threat actually is. He’s trying to learn to wait on God for a sure word, like a single bullet that goes straight to the heart of the matter. Neither does he like to give the enemy any more attention than is absolutely necessary. “The devil has nothing in us,” he said, “unless we give him place. In these situations, the issue is not what devices the enemy might come out against us with, but whether we’ll exercise our faith in God and let Him give us the victory.”

God has said in His Word that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17a, KJV). He did not say, however, that no weapon would ever threaten us. Indeed, in the same passage He says, “I create the blacksmith who fires up his forge and makes a weapon designed to kill. I also create the destroyer—but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged (Verses 16-17, MSG).

Then He seals this promise with a grand proclamation (KJV): “This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD.”