Today’s Christian Doing Spiritual Warfare

A Christian man woke up on a Saturday morning and decided to take a ‘prayer walk’ down the road.

He got dressed, grabbed his Bible and a few things and quickly set out. It was a beautifully crisp autumn morning.

“Oh Lord, please give me opportunities to share your goodness and your Gospel with the world!” he prayed.

After a few minutes a real downtrodden-looking woman passed him and stood in his way.

“Could you please spare some change? I’m so hungry and have nothing to eat,” she said.

“Sorry,” said the man. “I’m busy praying. Can’t help you right now.”

He continued to walk and now his praying got more aggressive.

“Devil! I command you to loose yourself from my city! In the name of Jesus I command you and your demons to go!”

A middle-aged man was hobbling towards him. It seemed as if his one leg was shorter than the other, and he seemed to have a really bad cough. Altogether, it looked as if sickness was getting the better of him.

“Oh, I wish I could walk like you do! And be in such good health!” the middle-aged man said to the Christian as they passed.

“Sorry, I’m a little busy to talk right now. I’m doing spiritual warfare,” said the Christian.

Eventually he found a bench and sat down, taking out his Bible. He remembered reading about a spiritual technique called “Lectio Divina”, a way of reading scripture and praying that was practiced by early monks. He started practicing this spiritual discipline.

A rather smartly dressed man holding a few magazines under his arm came and sat down next to him. He opened one of the magazines entitled, “Atheism today” and browsed through it. Another was called, “The New Age Correspondent.” He browsed through this too and turned towards the Christian, who looked up.

The smartly dressed man was looking quite intently at him.

“Have you heard?” he said. “God is dead. Or he may just be the Universe, a cosmic goodness we can become by looking deeply enough inside ourselves to find our Inner Goodness.”

“Sorry,” said the Christian, quite politely. “I’m busy reading my Bible and praying right now. No time to chat.”

The smartly dressed man carried on browsing his magazines and then eventually left. The Christian, having finished his spiritual exercises, stretched and went back home.

He grabbed his car keys and decided to go shopping.

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Why Enjoyment is the Point of a ‘Quiet Time’

One of the reasons why Christians should set aside some time during the day, every day, for God, is to make our pursuit of pleasure for the day God Himself. This time set aside for God is often called a ‘quiet time’.

This is usually an intimate time we spend with God that can overflow into prayer for others, but is mainly just about spending time with God (like when Adam used to spend time with God walking in the cool of the day in the book of Genesis).

However, it seems that many of us have largely made the point of this ‘quiet time’ about growth (growing as a Christian) and we’ve made the by-product of growth enjoyment of God.

But it should actually be the other way around. The point is enjoying God and the by-product of such enjoyment is growth.

This is what worship is about. The more one enjoys God the more they will grow, and then usually the more they grow the more they will want to enjoy God.

But making growth the point transforms it into a type of duty. There is a difference between saying “I must have a quiet time, I must worship God” and saying “I really need to have a quiet time, I need (to worship) God.” One is based on duty, the other based on longing and knowing where to be fulfilled.