March 13, 2016

Be Alert At All Times

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. -- 1 Peter 5:8

Last night our downtown hosted a Girls’ Night Out event. It was filled with fun and talk and meeting new people and old. I visited a store where my friend once operated her business. So much had changed. But not everything.

The young girls working heard me telling someone about the history of the store. It was once a funeral parlor. The old elevator with pull cords is still there. That’s how they got the bodies up to the second floor, where the embalming was done.

One Saturday my friend’s mother was working. She had one of her sweet dogs with her. She’d gone upstairs and the dog went with her. Something spooked the dog, who went running downstairs. Her Mom said she could see some clothes moving but nothing else. The dog would never go back upstairs.

One of the girls was totally freaked out and told us she works there most days by herself. There couldn’t be spirits, she insisted. When a person dies, you either go to heaven or hell. I didn’t want to get into the whole spiritual warfare topic. Honestly, I wasn’t sure she could handle it and I knew it was neither the time nor the place. I may stop back in one day and talk with her, though that’s another thing.

My advice: If something scares you tell it in no uncertain terms and in Jesus’ name to go away. She practiced. I hope she believed me because as simple as it sounds, it works.

We live in a fallen world where there is a spiritual battle going on around us all the time. It’s not some mystic mumbo jumbo. It’s real. And we’ve got to realize what is happening in order to fight against it. Be alert, as Peter says. Understand that the closer you get to doing something God has called you to do, the more Satan will attack you.

Know also your buttons. What are you afraid of? What makes you angry? Know where you are vulnerable to attack. Know what is most likely to cause you to sin and be prepared to fight against it -- in Jesus’ name and with His power and wisdom.

I have no idea what freaked the dog out that Saturday afternoon. But I do know it’s another reminder to us to always be aware of what is happening in the spiritual world that we do not see.