Prayer is the best communication with our Heavenly Father! He is always wanting to hear from us. Faith and trust comes from this to you. After all, leading through perfect example, Jesus did this often with his father God in Heaven!

Again – you read our hearts and know our struggles! Thank you for articulating our suffering – for it is a form of suffering – and helping us walk into hope and trust!

I spent 7 years slugging it out in the trenches of warfare against the principalities, authorities, and rulers of darkness over our nation. During this time I also went through anxiety, mental anguish, bodily afflictions including excruciating pain that made my world one of simply surviving. About 6 months ago, I began to question, not my faith in God but my approach in how I am to interact with this evil world. Discernment can be a blessing and also curse when one does not understand the limits of their authority. I began to pray earnestly and I asked God to give me more insight into these spiritual forces of darkness, where they came from, what is their role in our world today, and what am I to specifically do about them.
As I searched the scriptures, i uncovered information I had never seen before. These bits and pieces helped me to understand a bigger picture that supersedes the daily chaos that had been the focus of all my attention. I want to share these scriptures and show how my theology was changed.
As I looked for the origins of these principalities, I came across Psalms 82. It describes a scene where God, YWHY, is surrounded by “gods” in a heavenly council meeting. He is angry with some of them. He trusted them to govern properly and they somehow rebelled against Him. He judges them harshly and sentences them to death. He says to them “you will die like men.” In Deuteronomy 32:8-9, ESV, in the song of Moses to Israel he says ask your elders and they will tell you “ when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God, But the Lords portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” This was done during the Tower of Babel incident. These sons of God were the spiritual beings talked about in Psalm 82. They were to govern the nations righteously, but rebelled from God, and instead of creating an environment to bring the people into an understanding of the true God, they coerced the people to worship them. It is these “gods” that became the principalities that we wrestle with everyday according to Ephesians 6:12.
You will find these “spiritual beings” mentioned throughout the Bible as sons of God, gods, heavenly host, council of god, angels, cherubim, seraphim, and demons. Some are on God’s side and some rebelled. Satan was the supreme spiritual being that rebelled and heads up these rebellious ones. The point here is that God initially created all of them them to be part of His family to work with Him in governing His creation, which includes mankind. 1 Kings 22:19-23 gives another example of the council of God working to intervene in dealing with Ahab.
As I saw the origins of this evil we wrestle with every day, I also learned from scripture that God is using these evil forces in a larger plan for redemption of all creation, including mankind. For many years I had the belief that the only good principality was a dead principality. I spent hours binding, decreeing, neutralizing, castigating, and commanding them. Then I came across this scripture in Eph. 3:8-13, Paul says,
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
These “rulers and authorities” are the same words used in Eph 6:12. The scripture says we, the church, are to make known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, the manifold wisdom of God. My first thoughts when I discovered this scripture was “wait a minute, what about my desires to rid our nation of these evil forces? “. I was convicted. I realized it’s not about what I want, it was not about me at all but about demonstrating this manifold wisdom of God to these evil forces. I saw that I have a role in Gods overall plan for all of creation and it may not necessarily be in my best interests on this earth. It is for a greater cause. A cause that was devised by God in a plan created at the very beginning of creation. How do I demonstrate this manifold wisdom? We do it by obeying Jesus. In our sufferings we show our allegiance to God in our actions and in our speech. We for forgive others that that offend us. We show love to our enemies. We demonstrate these attributes to these o evil forces because they do not understand how we can Love our God when our lives are difficult. They do not fully understand God’s plan of redemption for all of creation, otherwise they would have never deceived those who crucified Christ. They did not understand that His death sealed their fate forever. Now they are stalling, trying to drive the world into thinking we can save ourselves and at the same time deceiving and bringing bondage. They have no idea what we know to be true. One day, Jesus will come back and He will fulfill the scripture in 1 Cor 15:23-24, Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Christ will destroy these evil principalities after He returns, not before.
God’s overall plan is to creat a new Heaven and a new earth. I believe we cannot even fathom our existence in this new earth that has been redeemed from the curse that was on it. We are being prepared for our role in eternity right now. All the suffering and persecution does not compare with the glory will experience. God is using our experience here to mold us and purify us so we will be able to “even judge angels” as Paul says in 1 Cor 6:3. The entire chapter of Romans 8 talks about this overall plan. I also want to mention Job 41 and Jude 8, which gives insight into how we are to view spiritual forces of evil. In Job 41, Leviathan is a type of evil spiritual being. As you read the chapter, see how God mocks Job for even considering to engage him. In Jude 8,9 the archangel Michael also is careful in his interaction with Satan.
The transformation in my life has given me a peace I have not known before. Does it mean I sit around and simply wait for Jesus to return? Absolutely not. We are commanded to pray for our leaders in 1 Tim 2:1-2. We pray knowing that whatever happens, whether our prayers are answered or not, God’s plan will come to pass. Do I want America restored, absolutely, but my hope is not in that transformation. It may happen, it may not. Also, realize that in this time of testing our flesh is being crucified. I felt like my grip, holding on to the things I felt were so dear and important to me, was being peeled off, finger by finger as I was trying to hold onto my life. Jesus says in Mt 16:25, For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
In conclusion, I believe I somehow got off track and I became myopic, thinking I was somehow responsible for this terrible evil that has descended on our nation. I am only responsible to demonstrate Christ in me and pray for my leaders, not determine the outcome.