Let me start this out by saying, I'm not weird....I promise (Talk to the people who know me....or actually maybe don't, they might just tell you something different!). I know some of the things I share below may sound weird and to be honest I feel a little weird sharing them, but that doesn't make me a weirdo at my core (Insert big nervous smile here). I share these things only to try and make sense of them in my own mind. You can agree or disagree, understand or not, believe or not believe it, and it's all okay. I myself am in the middle of all that as well, so I understand!
When I was in high school I attended what I would now call quite the Charismatic church. I had just "accepted" Jesus and I knew that any fire that was sparked in me would probably die if I kept attending my parent's church and so I went searching for something with a crowd a little more my age. I found it pretty quickly and just as quickly got involved in as much as I could in this church. I think I must have heard someone say that the most holiest people are the ones who are in service every time the doors are open, because I would drive my parents up the wall with begging and pleading to get me to those doors.
The services in this church were pretty normal in terms of what you find in most U.S. churches. There was worship, a message and some time for prayer afterwards. I had, and to this day still have, a lot of respect for the pastors who led there. But there were some things about the services that kind of weirded me out.
I could handle the raising of hands and even the dancing in worship. I could understand why people would take notes of everything that was being said and would flock to the front for prayer after service. I got that and often times even tried to replicate it. But I never quite got the other stuff....the gold dust that would fall, the people falling down or shaking from the power of the Spirit hitting them, or even the whole holy laughter thing. ( Not to say that I didn't try to get it....I even clearly remember times I "experienced" some of those things, although to this day I can't really explain It).
Today, years removed for this particular church, I'm somewhere between what you would consider a Charis-Skeptical and Charis-Friendly person....somewhat skeptical of what I have seen and see and yet still open to the possibility that it's how God is choosing to work. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the supernatural. I believe that God can heal and that God can restore and that sometimes when He's doing those things strange stuff happens that can totally weird people like me out. The weirdness doesn't mean it's not God and to be honest I don't necessarily need to understand it.
That leads me to the other night when I was sleeping and woke up suddenly because I felt someone staring at me. I opened my eyes and rolled over in bed and very clearly saw a man about my height with short black hair, tanned skin and piercing brown eyes standing next to my bed. Fear rushed through my body in that instant, but the second I blinked the guys was gone. It took me a while to fall back asleep after that (as you might imagine!!!) and I spent much of the next few hours just praying and proclaiming the name of Jesus in my room!
The next morning at our team prayer time I shared with my teammates what happened and we all decided that it was probably best that we all pray over my room. I told my teammates where I had saw the man and one of them stood in that spot and shook like he had shivers and let out a noise like you do when you see a gross spider. I thought he was just making jokes, but after we prayed he stood there again and said whatever he had felt there before was definitely less, so I guess he wasn't joking!
Then my other teammate shared with me that when we were praying she felt on fire...like heat was welling up inside of her...and then it just burst out of her like a rushing wind. She thought this was the Holy Spirit working through her and attacking whatever was in the room. And for her that was enough to believe that whatever spirit was in the room, had left.
I thought about these things all day yesterday, about how they weird me out but also about how the bible says that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:2), and I couldn't help but think that maybe this was all part of the spiritual battle. I mean clearly the devil isn't all that happy about my team being here in town and all sorts of strange things have happened, so why not this too?
Then last night this train of thought was confirmed to me when my other teammate (I have four in case you're confused) informed me that she has noticed the witch doctor camping out in front of our house the past few days! When she told me this, I immediately tensed up because I remembered seeing him that morning (although I didn't know at the time he was a witch doctor) standing across the street looking into our dining room window while I was doing my morning devotions. I remember having this strange feeling when I saw him too, but I passed it off as nothing, since I can so easily freak myself out.
I guess what I'm trying to say in all of this is that just like I never really understood all the supernatural Charismatic stuff that happened in the church I attended growing up, I certainly don't understand all this supernatural spiritual battle stuff I'm experiencing now either, but that doesn't mean it's not real! God is at work in this village and through this team, and I am sure that the devil is not happy about it (I think he probably though he won back the city when the last missionaries left before we arrived). This is not the first weird, "I feel so strange talking about this", story I have from being here and I'm sure it won't be the last. The battle is real. The Devil is real. But thankfully I know who wins the battle in the end!
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