Darkness and Discouragement

When I think of my most intense experience with spiritual warfare, I do not remember times when I was praying for people who were literally demonized. Those were intense, but relatively short. By far, my most severe experiences of spiritual warfare came in those times during my pastoral ministry when I was deeply discouraged with my ministry, my church, and myself. Now, discouragement is a natural human response to failure and doesn’t require a demonic agent. But I believe that what I was going through during those difficult times was more than human. Based on my experience, and that of so many other Christians I know, discouragement can be a powerful weapon in our enemy’s arsenal.

There were human elements in my discouragement such as exhaustion, failure, and frustration. But things happened that suggested that some other power was working against me. People who had been supportive of me inexplicably turned against me. Church members I had tried hard to love accused me of being unloving. Trusted leaders broke their word and blamed me in order to cover their own backsides. I got so wrapped up in trying to fix things that I spent less time with the Lord. I found myself distracted from the most important parts of my ministry and focused on relatively inconsequential things.

At the time all of this was happening, I confess that I tended to see all of my battles as against flesh and blood. But, in retrospect, I believe that the forces of evil were at work in subtle ways. And, I believe that God was also at work in subtle ways. He was using that which Satan intended for evil in order to work good in my life and through me in the lives of others.

There was a spiritual dimension to what was going on, which meant that any effort to solve the problems with human ingenuity alone was doomed to fail. What I and my ministry partners needed to do was to put on the armor of God, gird ourselves for battle, and pray in the Spirit at all times. That is how we battle and taste in this age a bit of God’s ultimate victory.

To go deeper, see our recommended resources on spiritual warfare.

—Mark D. Roberts senior advisor and theologian in residence of Foundations for Laity Renewal, San Antonio, Texas