Jesus, Resistance And The Trembling Darkness
I began writing this for no one else but me.
There are some things that happen in the life of a follower of Jesus that he or she needs to remember.
I am not always good at capturing moments along the way, whether they be ones of toil, struggle, fight, doubt, question, suffering, goodness, provision, miracle or otherwise. So recently I've tried to to get back into practicing an old discipline that I first began as a young man beginning his journey with Jesus. The practice of journaling.
As I sought to capture some of our recent experiences in following Jesus into mission and my reflections on those events, this evolved into something more than an entry in my moleskin. Something I thought might be worth sharing. I share in hopes that it may help other fellow sojourners who are already following Jesus into mission and others who are thinking about doing so.
Please know I share none of this to be sensational or draw attention to ourselves. I share it because I am convinced wherever men and women of faith seek to strike out into enemy territory in the name of the King they will inevitably be met with resistance.
Better to know and prepare for it now than later.
"If you don't believe demons are real, try planting a church. You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy."
I first came across this quote by Darrin Patrick fairly early in my church planting journey. Over the years Darrin became something of a mentor to me from afar. To this day I return to things he taught and said regularly. But the resistance never stopped for Darrin. Tragically, Darrin took his own life a couple of years ago. After decades of faithfulness in a moment of weakness he succumbed to it. I miss him dearly as I know do many others. So let me just say what I know many others who have followed Jesus into mission will also tell you:
His words above are absolutely true.
We’ve experienced this this is various ways throughout our experience in ministry. The past couple of months in particular, however, have really been something. So I wrote them down so as not to forget this season.
Over recent weeks we have regularly experienced what I can only explain as a heavy darkness in our home. This was followed by
very painful intestinal issues that made it impossible for me to eat
a key piece of equipment we need for a business we are in the process of starting breaking down on the very day we began and with it a ten week wait on a replacement part due to covid affect on manufacturing
two bouts with lice (it was bad)
a yellow jacket attack that left my wife’s face looking like Quasimodo (our children’s words, not mine)
the new covid variant hitting me on the very weekend we were finally scheduled to regather as a church
this was followed by each member of our family getting hit hard over the past couple of weeks
collective inability to sleep and nightmares amongst the family
what I will simply categorize as some intense “demonic stuff”
and then perhaps most difficult of all, our son Jackson began having night terrors (a first) and with it wetting the bed for the first time in several years.
I’ll admit this is a lot more than usual. And I’m really thankful for that. It's not often the enemy throws this much resistance all at once.
But at some level the resistance is always there.
It is in seasons like this that I think I understand perhaps at least part of the reason why so many church-goers and leaders remain content to stay within the seemingly safe confines of their sanctuaries.
In some sense it truly is safer.
To be inside the walls of the church, surrounded by people who generally believe as they do, under the loving care of servant leaders seems like a pretty safe place to be most days.
But I think it’s “safe” for other reasons too.
To sit in religious circles and have religious conversations with religious people about mostly religious things is to take oneself out of the game, so to speak. It is to position oneself in such a way as to pose little to no threat to the enemy.
Why should he bother with such a Christian? Comfortable and sidelined may very well be right where he wants all of us.
In that sense, yes. It may very well be safer to limit one’s involvement to just attending Sunday mornings and letting "the professionals" do the work of the ministry.
But is it safe for the soul? I don’t think so.
If it's spiritual aliveness we are talking about, I can think of few things more dangerous.
You and I were created to join the Creator in his ongoing act of creation and re-creation. This is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We are image-bearers, ambassadors, kingdom laborers, ministers of reconciliation, heralds of good news.
We have been commissioned by Jesus, sent into the world, just as He was sent into the world. And with that call, if we are obedient to it, comes the inevitability of resistance.
So for those who would follow after Jesus, a few thoughts:
1. In my experience, Christians tend to err on one of two sides when it comes to things like Satan and spiritual warfare: taking it a little too seriously and not taking it seriously enough.
Some become obsessed with this stuff and can get a little wacky. They start speaking in babble, blaming things like lack of wisdom and poor decision making on demons and doing weird things in the name of Jesus. Some so weird and so unbiblical that they defame the very name of Jesus. We need not go there.
Everything we do needs to be soaked and shaped by scripture. If we consistently look like wack nut jobs to an unbelieving world it may be because we are.
On the other hand, the other side I see Christians and leaders err here is to essentially ignore all together. And this is the tribe I come from and part of the reason for my writing this.
This side tends to greatly underestimate the spiritual realities of life and ministry. This side goes to great lengths to rationally explain things of faith, typically framing them in the realm of theological ideas, rather than living faith. Things like Satan, demons and spiritual warfare then are rarely discussed because, if honest, we do not believe them to be real.
This is precisely why this stream tends to talk more about prayer than actually pray. At the end of the day, I'm just not sure we think things like prayer are all that necessary.
Those who follow Jesus into mission need to do so knowing what Jesus modeled and the Apostle Paul articulated for us so long ago:
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph 6:12).
2. We have nothing to fear.
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control." - 1 Timothy 1:7
I know some of what I've shared above can be a bit unnerving for someone who hasn't experienced these things. That's okay. We had almost no experience with all of the above before Megan and I were married and found our way into missional ministry. So let me encourage you:
We have nothing to fear. Jesus is king. He reigns. All authority is his. Everything has been placed under his feet. And if you are in Him, He is in you. Therefore we have nothing to fear.
One of the surprising gifts of following Jesus into mission is not only being alerted to the reality of spiritual darkness, but even more so watching that darkness flee before his name.
On the forefront of mission you will experience resistance yes, but you will also get to see and experience spiritual breakthrough and transformation like perhaps never before.
3. Intensified spiritual resistance often follows or precedes something spiritually significant.
There is a reason that the enemy squared off with Jesus right before his public ministry began. He wanted to stop what was about to begin.
I've found the same to be true in Jesus' ongoing ministry through his church.
Some of the greatest seasons of spiritual attack we've personally experienced has been right before God was about to do something significant or right after while we were tired and vulnerable. I've known this to be true in the lives and ministries of many others as well.
I think it is significant to note that while Jesus is the giver of light who promises that one day all things as we know it will be illuminated once and for all, the enemy is the prince of darkness and it is in the dark that he prefers to work.
So when he risks outing himself with increased or blatant resistance, it is often because something significant is about to happen or has already begun.
I think this should be of great encouragement to us. When we experience increased resistance it is likely because God is up to something.
4. Don't battle alone.
If the enemy has a modus operandi, it is "divide and conquer." He singles out Eve in the garden. He comes for Jesus while he's alone in the desert. He loves to get us alone when he can.
But we weren’t meant to do this alone.
Every follower of Jesus has dark seasons. And when we are alone we are vulnerable to believe all kinds of lies and tempted to give up. We need others around us to remind us of the truth, to cheer us on and to remind us it's worth the fight.
In recent weeks we have dear brothers and sisters in Christ rally around us in prayer. We've had texts throughout the day and late night phones calls to check in and see how we're doing. We've had numerous families wave through windows as they dropped meals off and then stop and pray for our family in our carport, driveway and front yard.
The truth? Neither Megan or I like asking for help. We didn't really ask for a lot of help in recent weeks. I think most days our pride would have us try to slog it out alone than ask.
But people. kept. showing up.
They just kept making meals, praying over us, blessing us, refusing to let us cave into ourselves and isolate.
Another confession?
It was exactly what we needed.
And it has meant the world to us. And like Moses (we're not like Moses btw), in this season they've held our hands up when we could no longer raise them on our own.
I think that is what the church was meant to be.
Seasons like these can take a person or family out if they are trying to go at it alone. I've seen it happen too many times. But "a strand of three cords is not easily broken."
We need others. You need others. Everyone does.
5. God is good, Jesus is king, and the Spirit is at work. ALWAYS.
No matter how dark or difficult the season there are always moments of grace, if we look for them. It’s those times where the light breaks through and we see that God never left and the Spirit’s work hasn’t stopped.
This is a truth I have had to learn and relearn this throughout my years in ministry.
A couple of weeks back I was feeling pretty beat up. After all the things we’d been through over the past couple of months I was really tired. On top of that, I was recovering from this most recent covid variant and hadn’t eaten in five or six days.
Weak and depleted, I just wanted to sleep.
But I had what I can only describe as a violent case of hiccups. They lasted for hours. I couldn’t rest. I couldn't sleep. And all my best efforts and WebMD solutions just seemed to make everything worse. I just couldn’t get rid of them.
As we were putting our kids to bed that night, my wife Megan said to our three children, “Alright kids. We are going to pray for some things, as we normally do, but we are all going to pray together that daddy’s hiccups go away. Right now.”
We prayed. For a lot of things.
Dad. Neighbors. Friends. Teachers. Afghanistan. Our church.
When we were done there was a long moment of quiet. I said (with no small amount of relief), “Hey kids, you notice anything different?”
They shouted, “Your hiccups are gone!”
And indeed they were. Nothing earth shattering. No dead were raised.
But our son Jackson, who is seven years old, didn’t want to go to sleep.
He wanted to talk about Jesus.
He wanted to know “What is Jesus like? What kind of king is he? Why is he so good? Where does his power come from? Can he lose that power? Will he always be here for us? So I can pray to him anytime?”
This became our new nightly routine. Jackson wanted to talk about Jesus.
A few nights ago while we were preparing to wrap things up for the night I heard Jackson’s little voice from the other room calling for me. “Hey dad, does Jesus still have his power?”
I walked in and assured him Jesus sure does.
“I have hiccups,” he said (with his little lisp), “will you pray for Jesus to take them away?”
“Of course,” I said. So we sat down, I put my hand on his little chest and we prayed. I prayed a prayer of blessing over him, asking Jesus to give him rest, to help him love his classmates well the next day at school, to grow Jackson up to be just like Him, and also to take his hiccups away.
When we were done the hiccups were gone.
Jackson looked up at me with a smile and said, “Jesus loves me you know.”
“I know, buddy. He sure does.”
“Will Jesus still have all of his power tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow and everyday after it, bud. Always.”
Our nightly routine has continued.
The night terrors have since stopped.
And Jackson is slowly learning for himself just how good God is.
Of course there’s a lot he doesn’t yet know or understand, but there’s one thing Jackson seems pretty clear on at this point: when he prays, King Jesus hears him and responds.
It’s no wonder the darkness trembles.
