Struggles: It’s War

Let me clear this up by saying it is not a physical war going on in Indonesia, but rather, a spiritual one, which is just as dangerous.

I won’t name names for who is struggling (because there are a few of us who seem to be doing okay), but it is the majority of us, and it’s been especially hard after Awakening, when we felt the presence of God so clearly.

Why am I sharing this? In part, to ask for prayer. It’s the only thing that’s been helping fight this. And in part, as I’m sharing this, I want to raise awareness that it is a very real struggle, that can happen to anyone, especially when they’re doing God’s work.

Personally, I feel like my body’s been attacked. I’ve been sick since I got to Indonesia, and while I’m finally feeling mostly healthy (I still have an annoying cough), now I’m injured. This is going to sound so weird, but it’s my big toe, and it just randomly got really swollen and painful one night, just when I felt like I was on the mend to being completely physically healthy.

Now, I had just been helping teach jiu jitsu a few hours before, and it had felt a little uncomfortable after that, but nowhere near this level of pain, which actually woke me up and refused to let me go back to bed until I had taken ibuprofen. Whether it’s actually the result of warfare or not, it needs prayer, because it makes walking painful, which makes me tempted to neglect certain parts of our work here.

And while I’m on the topic of sleep, let me share that I’ve been having the opposite problem of South Africa, where all I wanted to do was sleep. Here, I still want to sleep, but instead of napping all day, every day, I lay awake at night for hours, just staring at the ceiling and waiting for my exhaustion to reach a level where I actually can’t stay up any later.

Thankfully, all these problems I’ve been having are becoming less powerful, but now Satan’s been switching to attacking my emotions. I’m missing people far more than usual, certain jokes have been making feel so stressed, and I just feel sad on the inside. I’m by no means feeling all of these all the time, but there’s usually one of them clinging at any given moment. All the more reason to pray!

I’m not the only one struggling with these things, and in addition to all these, Satan has also been attacking people spiritually, bringing doubts to the forefront of their minds and doing his best to fill their minds with so many lies, they can’t hear the voice of truth. The people struggling with this recognize what’s happening, but it’s so hard to proclaim truth when the father of lies is doing his best to drown it all out. It also doesn’t help that homesickness is becoming more and more real the closer we are to home.

Please be praying for physical healing, for emotional peace, for mental stability, and for spiritual assurance in our Heavenly Father, who is unseen but not unseeing.