Personal Spiritual Warfare Victory in the Midst of Struggle

I’ve studied and written about spiritual warfare for more than 30 years now, and this spiritual warfare victory reshaped how I understand the struggle and the path to healing. In fact, you can study the topic with me through the Church Answers Church Equip course, “Engaging in Spiritual Warfare.” In some ways, that short course reflects the core of what I’ve taught over the years, and it helped me appreciate the value of the offensive use of Scripture.

What I don’t always talk about when I’m teaching this topic, however, is why I started studying warfare in the first place, though I often teach practical defensive strategies.

My father drank when I was quite young, and he had a violent, explosive temper for many years. My first memory is a time when my dad was angry at my mom for being at the store too long, and he destroyed the bottom floor of our home. Now more than 60 years later, I can still walk you through that house and show you the upheaval as if it happened yesterday. Every detail remains etched in my mind. Even my Christian conversion at age 13 and later study of armor of God application did not erase that memory—or many others, for that matter.

Indeed, more than once I stood between my mom and dad—both of them towering over me when I was younger—hoping to shield my mom as she shook and cried in fear under the barrage of my dad’s verbal assaults. I was equally afraid, but I felt a compulsion to somehow guard my mom. In fact, I lived in dreaded fear of my dad until I was big enough to stand up to him (or more likely, just avoid him)—but the fears of my young years then turned to hatred in my teen years. 

Again, though, my conversion at age 13 didn’t free me immediately from those feelings; it just left me confused under what I would later learn was Holy Spirit conviction. It would be more than 15 years later before I found victory over that anguish. That’s where the topic of spiritual warfare entered my story. 

Healing began for me unexpectedly one day when I read a Bible verse I had read many times before, but didn’t see its significance until then:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6:12).

It seemed as if this text leapt off the page to me, teaching me that my dad was not my enemy; in fact, people in general are not the enemy. Rather, there is a supernatural enemy who wanted to keep me afraid, angry, and unforgiving. The Father of Lies (John 8:44) sought to keep me in bondage to my enduring bitterness toward my earthly father.