Muncie, Indiana

Over the past ten months, I have crossed further and further into a battlefield. As I have been ministering to and alongside of people, I have felt a strong presence of the enemy and seen a great deal of spiritual warfare. It has been painful, tiring, and annoying. However, through all of this I have seen God work a great deal in my life and the life of others.

I didn't grow up understand much about spiritual warfare or even with much of an understanding of the devil. I knew that he was bad and that we were supposed to do what was good. Whenever people would talk about Satan I would think of that stupid church song, "if I had a little red box to put the devil in...I would take him out and smash him up and put him back again." So, here I am as a little kid picturing this little red character and smashing him to a pulp. The song does try to get across that we are more powerful, but it was a rude awakening for me when I grew up and understood that he was bigger than that. This whole idea of spiritual warfare was nothing but a joke to me but the truth is that it's much bigger than that.

I drive down the streets at night and see people walking alone up and down, nowhere to go. Sometimes when I am driving, I feel this deep and painful heartache for them. Then at other times, I feel that with a side of dark presence surrounding them. The worst of it is when I see people from my community and members of our church and I feel the same exact pains. I know that the devil is targeting our community and I know that he has hold of some of our households. However, I also know that we serve a God who is so much bigger than that. I know that there are some things that are happening that shouldn't be happening, but I also know that God loves his children and wants them to know that the devil has no reign over them.

I have seen God pull some people out of a lot of things over the past ten months. I have seen how the body has come together to fight together. I have also seen how the devil has taken reign on some people and it seems like we have given up. This is an uncomfortable topic and I think that we get weirded out talking about it sometimes but the truth is that it needs to be talked about. We need to see what we need to do and we need to see what God is doing.

The truth of it all is that God is doing something big. He is working in the people of Muncie and he does have reign over this area. The truth is louder than the lies we are being fed, we just have to listen. We are stronger than any stronghold of this area, we just have to rise up. This is a call that has been coming to us for a long time, it's time that we take it.