Quiet Talk About Spiritual Warfare

I recently finished and enjoyed reading Rankins Spiritual Warfare. It has been one of the most honest books about spiritual warfare that was written in recent times. It is too easy to get wrapped up in the world and liberality to believe that if adversity is happening then God must not love us or is punishing us. On the other side of the coin there is the belief that God must not exist if there is so much turmoil in the world. Yet, there is a totally different coin that has a different tale. John 16:33 states, "I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world."
 Indeed, in this life we will have suffering and adversities. Rankin states, "Does He (God) know how He can be most glorified in your life? Yes, and it's not by putting a hedge of protection around you so that you never have any challenges and struggles." (1) I agree with Rankin. I love teaching people how to be resilient because of adversities that I have gone through. One of my favorite quotes that I use is, "God would not put you in a glass bubble when you become a Christian. If He did He wouldn't be able to test how true our faith is. Even if we were in a glass bubble safe from all troubles and adversities our flesh would still be so selfish to complain about that."

The Apostle Paul is one of the main people that I discuss a lot because of his sufferings. As much as he suffered he still stated in Ephesians 6:10, "Be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength." It is only with Christ and His strength that we can get through adversity. Usually when adversities strike a person they tend to focus on themselves and how they will get through it. They do not turn to Christ and his promises. Rankin wrote, "Our fleshly nature is so self-centered that we tend to focus on our comforts and conveniences and feel sorry for ourselves when our plans are disrupted, and we suffer the loss of material things. We fail to realize that God may have a higher purpose in allowing adversity to come into our lives." (2) One of the sorrows (adversities) that I have seen people suffer the most (or I should say suffer the worse) is when a loved one passes away. This is one of the oddest things to me especially for Christians because we know that people are going to die and it is plainly stated in the Bible. Rankins whole point throughout the book is glorifying God. Even the death of a loved one can help us to glorify God by how we go through the mourning process.

 I have had a lot of adversities in my life beginning in my childhood however, none has been as bad as the troubles of war and suffering the injury that I have already spoken of. I will admit that when it first happened I questioned why would God allow this to happen to someone that is His child and to someone that surrendered into the ministry. In the beginning I was acting selfishly not realizing that God could use this for His glory. I was selfish because when it first happened I stuttered after the plain ride from Iraq to Germany and my memory was terrible. Now looking back I see there was many blessings that can be found in that situation. Not only have I been able to overcome many of the cognitive issues, but the biggest blessing that I can find in that situation is that my truck got hit by the I.E.D. The I.E.D that hit my vehicle was a large explosive and I was in a RG-31 a vehicle that can take the hit better than humvee's. In my convoy there was two humvee's which had my platoon leader in one and my platoon sergeant in the other along with their crew; both vehicles had at least four people in them. If one of their vehicles would have got hit everyone could have or more than likely died.
 It is all about having faith in God, how we deal with adversity, and perspective about the situation. One of my biggest irritations now is the small things. One thing that I can take from Rankins writings is not to allow the termites get to me. I will incorporate this in my prayer life and ministry. I am getting better, but I know that Satan uses those termites to take my focus off of Christ.


References
1. Jerry Rankin, Spiritual Warfare: The Battle for God's Glory, (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing, 2009), 202.
2. Ibid., 207.

Influential Prayer Life

Earley discusses the boldness of prayer in in chapter seven. Hebrews 4:16 states, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (KJV)." It is interesting that the author of Hebrews makes such a statement after describing Jesus as the Christians High Priest. He has passed through the heavens, he can be touched with our infirmities, and was in all points tempted just as we have been or will ever be. The author is giving us a depiction of the high priest in the Old Testament and how they would intercede on behalf of the Jewish people, but now this Jesus is different. Jesus is unlike those priest in the Old Testament because He was sinless, sits at the right hand of the Father, and regardless of how bad our sins or infirmities are we can touch Him unlike the Old Testament priest. An example of this can be found in Luke 8:43-48. A woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years which was considered very unclean in the ancient world touched His garment. He confronted her about it and she confessed to Him about it. She also exclaimed that she was immediately healed. He told her that her faith has healed her and to go in peace.

That is boldness of faith and prayer. It takes boldness to come to throne of God to receive from Him what He has promised. The woman as well as many others knew that Christ could heal them. That is the same boldness that Christians should be praying in daily knowing that we have a Great High priest that is interceding for us regardless of our infirmities. Earley wrote, "Spurgeon implores to accept the promise personally "as one's own." After doing so, the believer must pray." (1) The Christian must search for the promises of God and pray those specific prayers as going boldly before the throne of grace.

The tree applications that I can add into my prayer life from chapters six through ten are: to be specific, ask big, and supplication. I believe that I do a really good job in my daily prayer life except for my ministry especially when it comes to these three areas. Before I read these specific area it was as if I was praying like a vessel in the ocean that was tossed to and fro. I prayed more like I was casting a net out to just catch something and that is how my teaching and evangelistic ministry has been since retiring from the Army too. Therefore, I am going to apply these three applications.

In speaking of being specific I am going to do something much like Dawson Trotman did in ask big like praying over a map, but I am going to start with a U.S map. I plan to outline a general area around the state that I live in and start praying from there. Earley quotes Finney as saying, "Prevailing prayer is specific. It is offered for definnite object. We cannot prevail for everything at once." (2) I believe that as my ministry is starting out this is a good start of asking big. Mentioning Trotman Earley wrote, "Trotman determined to pray over a map of the world two hours Earley every morning for forty days. (3) I want to start out specifically just as in the Finney observation, but eventually I would like to make an impact like the Navigators make; all over the world. The final aspect that I plan to incorporate is supplication. This final one is one of the most important. I have worried that I have taught enough nor have I evangelized enough which I have been busy at times. I am not praying prayers of supplications for financial gains or notoriety, but that I will have the opportunity to spread the Gospel especially in times such as these.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dale Griggs


References:
1. Dave Earley, Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact Leaders, (Chattanooga, Tennessee: Living Ink Books, 2008), 113.
2. Ibid., 117.
3. Ibid., 121