Day 21 - Issue 23
Ephesians 6:12 NLT
'For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.'
If any season reveals humanity’s uncertainty around spiritual issues it is Halloween, celebrated around the world on 31st October. I know from my years working at the Evangelical Alliance, this was the week when I had to tour the radio stations debating witches, and face questions from presenters around why did anyone take this seriously when rationality had dismissed the reality of such myths as fairy tales?
The fact that I was debating witches, warlocks and who knows what else on air might have indicated this was not really the Church getting upset over something of its own creation. Paul reminds the Church that in serving God we do not face rational argument alone. There are forces that lie beyond flesh and blood, evil forces that have been experienced by many different people over the centuries.
I have taken to gardening over the last few years. There was a long cypress hedge that I wanted to remove. Simple, I thought. Cut down the trees and take them to the tip. Not so. There was the small matter of the stumps left behind; stumps that in turn were connected to roots that spread out unseen beneath the earth. I might remove the trees, yet the stumps would regenerate. The strength of these trees was unseen, deep beneath my feet. Any plans I had in reclaiming that space for the productive growth of vegetables demanded I deal with the total, not the partial, problem.
So it is in our service of God. We can deal with the obvious without getting to the root of the problem. Only when we do that have we transformed the situation. In any situation, our own or that of others, we require the discernment of God to discover the roots, and prayer to know how best to remove them.
QUESTION: Do you pray to deal with the root causes of the problems you see, or only the surface issues?
PRAYER: Sovereign and holy God, may your kingdom come and be established over all the earth.
