On one of our morning VC OnLine ZoomDevo's hosted during our annual 10 days of prayer and fasting last month, we created a word cloud based on responses to this polling query, "capture in a word or two what you think keeps us from taking more seriously the spiritual realm." In this session we were riffing off of the text we reflected on in last months blog post, Mark 9:29, "this kind can only come out by prayer [and fasting.]"
To recap the story quickly again, the majority of the disciples have been ministering and it seems that there isn't anything that they come up against that they can't minister into. They are witnessing healing, power and grace without measure. Until they come to pray for the healing of one epileptic boy. They are stymied. Totally.
They had come up against something - someone? - different. A "kind" of thing they had not encountered before. And faith has waned.
On our Zoom call that morning, we took a deep breath. On the slide deck presentation we read together, "Let's reflect for a moment that they had not only experienced something they had never experienced before - as was our emphasis yesterday - but that in this case there actually is something deeply troubling - deeply spiritual - happening. And it is a type of thing - a kind - an actual demonic oppression they'd never encountered before.
The chat wall was abuzz. And the word cloud started taking shape.
A word cloud generator works by analyzing a given text, counting how often each word appears, and then visually representing those words in a cloud where the size of each word corresponds to its frequency - the more frequently a word appears, the larger it will be in the cloud; essentially, it's a visual representation of the most prominent words within a text.
The word most used as a response to our query was, "fear."
Upon some chat walling, people weighing in via email, and also debriefing about it on the next day's call, it became clear that this fear could more aptly be stated as "fears," for it was made up of multiple shapes and nuances.
Yup. Just raw fear for one. Fear of something dark and mysterious that in our material world we do not ponder often, and if we do, our perspective's been hijacked by some horror flick we watched or informed by a plethora of podcasts, documentaries and various forms of media exploring the paranormal.
But, also fear stemming from a lack of understanding or healthy biblical framing. Fear engendered because of observing, and experiencing, unhealthy practices in praying and counseling for people who were under the influence of demonic oppression of various sorts. Fear of stepping out and getting it wrong. Fear of ending up abusing someone you're trying to help. Fear of attributing things to the demonic realm, that really should be simply handled in a different, and more appropriate way. Fear of zany prophetic declarations railing against powers and principalities, casting them down in the name of all sorts of religious and political agendas.
Get the picture?
A couple thoughts.
Catherine Gunsalus González, a brilliant historian and theologian, American born and of Cuban descent, reminds us,
"We may think that we have moved far beyond a primitive view of the devil. We may think we are totally free to decide for good or evil, and that the power of evil is not as strong as our desire to do what is good. If we begin to tackle one evil in our society, however, we may well discover another has taken its place. It is rather like passing laws to outlaw the latest disasters caused by greed, only to discover greed has found new ways to carry out its desires. We can attack sins one by one, but Sin, with a capital letter, remains active in human life. We may not like the term "the devil," but it may also point to a reality of evil that our rationalist society does not understand."
[González, C. G. (2010). 1 & 2 Peter and Jude (A. P. Pauw & W. C. Placher, Eds.; p. 151). Westminster John Knox Press.]
1 Peter 5:8, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
Perhaps Peter is giving us a key antidote for the fears that are stirred when the devil is prowling. Stay alert, but an alertness that is informed by, and anchored to, sobriety.
Just as substances are designed to numb us and thusly embolden us to either hide from our fear in a stupor, or fill us with a brash prowess that has us stupidly, even embarrassingly, run into the very face of our fears to not only our own detriment but often resulting in hurting those around us, we also can become intoxicated with too much information, a lack of discernment in what sources are feeding our need for knowledge, certainty and general FOMO.
Instead of calming our fear, it is stoked. And if we're not careful, we can inadvertently call our fear based bravado, faith. As John Wimber used to say, "demons are not hard of hearing and God doesn't necessarily yell at us in King James language." Oh ya, and one other thing to keep in mind. John also used to say something like this, "your brother (or sister) is not your enemy." Usually there would be a short pause and then he would add, "they may act like it. But they're not."
Let us not give into a spirit of fear(fulness). Rather, let us stay alert. Stay appropriately informed, beyond our echo chambers that can feel so comforting and assuring. Keep listening. Keep learning. Keep praying. All the while, staying of sober-mind - νήφω - well balanced, self-controlled, restrained, discrete and watchful.
When Dietrich Bonhoeffer was himself a prisoner in a Nazi jail, he wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge about the upcoming baptism of Bethge's son, who was also Bonhoeffer's godson. Bonhoeffer was struck with the daring gesture of participating in a baptism in a world full of war and air raids, a world in which evil seemed to have the upper hand, a world in which he himself was in chains. He wrote to Bethge:
"If in the middle of an air raid God sends out the gospel call to his kingdom in baptism, it will be quite clear what that kingdom is and what it means. It is a kingdom stronger than war and danger, a kingdom of power and authority, signifying eternal terror and judgment to some, and eternal joy and righteousness to others, not a kingdom of the heart, but one as wide as the earth, not transitory but eternal, a kingdom that makes a way for itself and summons men to itself to prepare its way, a kingdom for which it is worthwhile risking our lives."
Now, that is sound and sober thinking while the roaring lions taunts are ringing in your ears.
Step by step.
