In Battle I Sleep With My Bible

Our team left Jacó, Costa Rica on Saturday to head to San José, Costa Rica for about nine days. The first team to leave the greater squad, we get the privilege of pioneering serving a new ministry for our squad called “Till He Returns.” We are working on inner city ministry including serving a pregnancy center, a hip hop dance studio, a business school and various other projects. These guys are cool – like dreads and Nikes and graffiti cool. I encourage you to check out their site to learn more about how they are impacting San José for the kingdom of God.

 

We are living in the heart of downtown next to the ministry in an old yellow house owned by a local family for generations. It used to be a family house and then a hotel. Think mosaic tiles, beautiful creaky wooden staircases, pipes to nowhere, stained glass, and eerie long hallways. It’s beautiful and mysterious looking and quite large.

 

“This place is kind of creepy,” one of my teammates said. “Yea, every old house has a story, doesn’t it?” I replied.

 

A lover of old things in general, I found myself staring straight up at the hand painted ceilings, admiring the delicious pine flooring and getting jealous that I was the only one without botanical curtains in my room. I love the double paneled doors, the antique nobs and the floral stained glass in the entryway. Somehow I ended up in a solo room while my teammates shared another two rooms – the girls in one and the boys in the other.

 

The house is right on the street, right on the train tracks and right in the middle of the noise of the city. Right across the street is the Naitonal Museum where you can see remnants of a castle like structure with hundreds of holes in it.

 

“Those are bullet holes from the war,” our host said. “This is a historical place.”

 

The house just feels lost, a relic of the past plopped in the middle of a busy urban scene built on a battle ground.

 

Restless to be reclaimed.

 

Our team of six are the only ones staying in the house for now other than a day and night guard that open up the gate for us and watch over us while we stay…….or so we thought.

 

Our first day was filled with bits of orientation, touring the center, grocery shopping and generally getting settled. We were tired after journeying and absorbing a lot of information but we gathered around the table with a couple of pizzas and met the night with laughter and joy. It’s what team M.O.M. does.

 

As the night crept over the house, corners were darkened and hallways became dim. The unoccupied rooms felt eerie and the balcony that overlooks the common area became a desolate no mans land to us. We all felt it.

 

If the supernatural freaks you out, I’d go ahead and stop reading here.

 

 

We agreed that before we went to sleep we should pray over each of our rooms and over the whole house. It’s not an uncommon thing for a Christian to do. We pray. We ask the Lord to bless our space and clean out any unholy thing. If you’re reading your bible out there you know that our battle is not with flesh and blood and we know that there is a supernatural war going on for souls. It’s our reality.

 

And we are a few months into the race so we’ve seen some things. We know how to call out demonic spirits and claim the authority of Christ over spaces and people. We walk in confidence of Christ. The victory is already ours. We know it.

 

So here’s how that looked:

–      Aaron’s on the guitar worshipping loudly and we are joining in and out.

–      I’m praying in tongues over each pillow and room pacing around the house with my bible in my hand.

–      Brandon’s also pacing reading scripture out loud.

–      Scottie’s discerning spirits and keeping us updated on what he’s sensing in the spiritual realm.

–      Alli and Alayna, true intercessors, are praying loudly throughout the house, their noses in their bibles.

–      We are all calling out spirits that we feel the Holy Spirit is revealing to us.

 

“In the name of Jesus, spirit of violence, leave!” “Spirit of lust, out!” “Spirit of darkness, go!”

 

This went on for about two hours. It’s easy to lose track of time when you are praying in the spirit. We were cleaning house. We could feel it.

 

As we continued to pray, Aaron began confessing sin that He felt might be holding us back in our renovation. That was powerful. He confessed out loud, asked for forgiveness out loud and asked for specific prayer. We’ve known for about a month that there has been something attached to His right ear and we’ve prayed over it consistently. It’s let up but now it was throbbing again. I came near, placed my hands on His ear praying in tongues and physically made the motion of pulling something out. He felt the release and so did I. That was a big win.

 

I closed my eyes and began claiming authority over the space again. “Spirit of fear, leave.” We all felt that that spirit was clinging to each of us making us peace-less for rest that night.

 

As that was going on, we heard footsteps upstairs in the balcony above us and watched as the curtains blew like someone had run across the hall.

 

“Did you see that, bro?” Alli said. “Whooooa, we made something mad.” Someone else said.

 

Ok now here is where some people would probably leave the house. When spiritual manifests into the physical, things get hairy. You can’t deny what you see in front of your eyes.

 

And somehow, honestly – I felt peace. We all did really. The authority of the most high God is with us.

 

Psalm 121: 5-8 – The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

 

We stand on these promises you guys. We are walking in the Kingdom of God – whom shall we fear?

 

So we chose to head to bed after more prayer and all the cleansing our energy levels could handle.

 

I closed the door to my room, solo, felt the silence engulf me and whipped out my bible and my guitar.

 

Praying scripture over my room and over my sleep, I sang hymns and asked God to protect each of us and show us how to pray when and if we were awakened by any spirit.

 

I laid down with my bible in my arms, the little lamp next to my bed still on and worship music playing through my phone. Far more powerful to sleep with the sword of the spirit than a teddy bear, I’ll say it.

 

In these vulnerable moments where I know I have victory but I also know that the enemy likes to mess with me for that very reason, I have been known to sleep with my bible and to gently pray that Jesus would lay down right next to me so I can sleep better.

 

He does.

 

The next morning our team debriefed our night and I’ll be honest, the results weren’t great. Almost everyone was woken up or experienced a nightmare and two of us experienced a physical disturbance.

 

Our annoyance at the enemy simply grew, but our fear didn’t.

 

And we aren’t leaving.

 

As we walked into the church service our host has each Sunday, I got maybe two steps in before a woman grabbed me and started speaking in Spanish. “Tus manos, Tus manos!”

 

Her daughter, who speaks English, smiled and told me Her Mom had some words for me. I would later find out that the woman excited to speak to me is the director of the pregnancy center we will be serving. She’s motherly and beautiful and she’s a prophet, so the Lord gives her supernatural knowledge about people and she shares it to build up the church.

 

Essentially she started talking about the power in my hands. She said there was supernatural power from the authority of Christ in my hands and she could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when I walked in the room. She went on to encourage me in a few other ways but honestly, I was floored.

 

Me?

 

I thought back to last night when I placed my hands over Aaron’s ears and we felt the release of the demonic presence. I remembered years of joking that my hands are creepy in photos (kind of an inside family/friends joke – if you know, you know) and how I’d never really thought much of being a healer.

 

But then I remembered all the promises God has given me about growing in authority and power. I thought of how he asked me to walk into an apprenticeship with someone on the race that walks in more authority and gusto for the Lord than I’ve seen yet. I remembered that I’m being trained in deliverance and just experienced my first two trainings just days before.

 

“Oh, it’s happening,” I thought.

 

It was encouraging. What are the odds I get grabbed and told that the night after our experience. No odds. No coincidence. Just Jesus and His Kingdom ways.

 

We are two nights in at the big yellow house. We pray and worship each night and we’ll do it again tonight. Our whole squad is praying for us back in Jacó and I’ve got people back in NWA pouring out prayer too.

 

Our feet will stand firm on the truth of the Gospel and we will not be moved. We WILL clean this house and have it sparkling for the next team from our squad. We will battle and we will do it with worship and praise and joy and strength in the Lord our God. And we will see peace flood through the windows and doors as we walk and breathe and laugh and sing.

 

Last night I woke up at 3:15 am after a nightmare where I saw a demon’s face decaying and dying.

 

Prophetic? I think so.

 

“Cheap shot,” I said as I prayed and went back to sleep, my bible in my arms and a smirk on my face. My God is victorious.

 

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We’d love it if you would join us in praying for the big yellow house and all who inhabit it in the future. And keep praying for San José and for the ministry we are serving. There is beauty coming from reaching the unreached.

 

Also, If you’re curious about anything I described above, I’d love to speak to you individually. Before I became a Christian, I experienced some of this without the Holy Spirit and it absolutely was scary to me without the covering of victory over my life, but with Jesus, there is nothing here to fear.