One of the main areas of spiritual battle is our internal being. This is also one of the hardest ones to fight. Generally, the main subject in preachings is our spiritual health, but the soul can get neglected in teachings. The soul was the strongest part of us prior to coming to Christ, and it tries to keep its supremacy after surrendering our lives to Christ. Therefore, it is important to tackle this part of our being, which can easily be manipulated by the enemy.
Our soul is made up of our thoughts, emotions, and will. What we see, hear, sense, and feel gets interpreted by our soul based on its prior experiences and worldview. This interpretation creates our perception of reality, which may or not be the truth. For example, if we see a friend at church who does not happen to acknowledge us, we can create one of several scenarios in our minds. Some may move on and forget about the exchange. Others will try to think about their last exchange with that friend and determine what went wrong. Some may confront the friend about the issue. Others might feel rejected and assume the worst.
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle. Proverbs 18:19
Such an exchange as the above example seems benign and does not look like a spiritual battle. However, once we open the door to the enemy by believing the lie that something must be wrong, we strengthen the enemy’s power in our lives. Our soul loses its rest, and we are hurt over nothing. The lie leads to offense and intentional distance from those we care about. Furthermore, we are more prone to similar incidents, which can make us think that there must be something wrong with us. These kinds of situations happen frequently at work, church, or family gatherings, and misunderstandings wreak havoc in the person’s soul and their relationships.
We cannot interpret things based on our limited understanding. That’s why it is important to trust God with all our hearts. In the above example, instead of drawing conclusion based on a limited information, we can stop ourselves from going in the wrong direction. We don’t have to assume that the person is mad or intended to reject us. We can just ask the Lord to show us if there is something that we need to do. We submit the situation and the relationship to Him and allow the Lord to guide us. This approach aborts the enemy’s process from playing with our thoughts and emotions. We made the decision to overcome the situation and not allow ourselves to create scenarios based on our limited understanding.
We also choose intentionally to transform our minds based on what is pleasing to God and think of things that are pure, lovely, and praiseworthy. We choose to believe the best in others and fight the battle of feeling rejected or neglected. Whether the action was intentional or not, we can choose to forgive the person, so we can be in a position to remain in a relationship with them and not give a foothold to the enemy.
Is your soul at rest or do you easily get agitated in your mind, emotions, and will? Pay attention to the doors that you open to the enemy and choose the word of God to live differently. The spiritual battle is not always going to announce itself; sometimes it will come in ordinary ways to distract and derail us and cause our soul to lose its peace!Fighting in the spirit is sometimes as simple as rejecting a thought that will lead us down a wrong path!
