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Can Angels and Demons Hear Thoughts?

6/16/2021

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We have faced some significant and overt spiritual battles over the past few years. One of those battles involved us actually rebuking a demonic presence we perceived was oppressing our family. Upon our rebuke, the issues IMMEDIATELY (and I can't emphasize that word enough) stopped. Needless to say, for me - someone who is not very attuned to the immaterial/spiritual aspect of Christianity, that was a wake up call. It really got me thinking of the ubiquity of demons, principalities, powers, etc. 

One of the big questions I had is whether or not evil spirits are able to hear our thoughts. Such an answer would be important for two reasons. First, if they can't hear our thoughts, then praying in my head, while useful and important to speak with my heavenly Father, is not a direct rebuke and confrontation of the evil spirit in my midst. To do battle, then, I should speak audibly. Second, if evil spirits cannot read my mind, then that may influence what I want to say out loud. There may be some fears and weaknesses I don't want to verbalize, which they could use to their advantage were they to know. ​

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Spiritual Warfare

3/24/2014

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A few weeks ago we were at the end of our rope. We had endured several years of difficulties, especially as it related to our family - and particularly our daughter. Now, for five weeks straight, our daughter was coming to us in the middle of the night - every night - and telling us that she was having nightmares. We know this is a phase that many young children go through, but because of the frequency with which they were happening and her inability to ever tell us about her dreams at all, at first we thought this was just a ploy for her to get our attention and sleep with us, but we began to see that there was genuine fear each night as we were going to bed. At the same time, her behavior became increasingly horrible again, which could be expected with nightly loss of sleep. But this was to another degree. She began having some very severe rages again. We watched her spiritual life decline. For no apparent reason she didn't ever want to pray anymore. She seemed to be taking pleasure in her cruel behavior, and we were seeing no signs of her sweet compassion or repentance we knew before. She began acting very hateful toward us, yelling that she hated us and that we didn't love her during her rages. 

As usual, Catalina caught the brunt of her nasty behavior, and it was clear that Catalina was really struggling with this major stress, too. Providentially, Elin's worst meltdown yet happened the night before Catalina was set to leave for our organization's Europe Women's Retreat. While there, she sought prayer from the more veteran missionary ladies. She went in, saying that she didn't really even know what to ask for per se. She knew she needed prayer about the anger she was struggling with, and then she began slowly telling the struggles that we've faced with Elin ever since arriving on the field - how her personality has done a complete 180 from when we were in the States. Without hesitation, the other women immediately declared that our experiences sounded like spiritual warfare. I'm not talking about the metaphoric spiritual warfare we always mention and don't really believe. I mean real warfare. They prayed fervently with hands over Catalina, praying for and declaring the Lord's victory over our situation - praying like they were doing battle.When Catalina got home we began to pray over our children each night - not simply for peaceful sleep - but that God would sanctify us and our house, that he would post angels around us to guard us, and that he would drive away any demonic forces which surrounded us. We rebuked the evil forces and declared God's victory.

Her first night back, Catalina slept with Elin after praying over the room. It was the first night Elin didn't have a nightmare, but Catalina had the worst, very vivid, very demonic nightmare she can remember. And after all this time of not really even knowing if Elin was telling the truth, the second night after Catalina's return, our daughter opened up to my wife and told her that in her dreams, there were dark monsters chasing and trying to eat her. She said she couldn't speak at all in her dreams and always wanted to find her sword. We were heartbroken for her. The next day - a Sunday - we taught our children the Armor of God for the first time. We acted it out and reviewed it over and over. We prayed it again before she went to bed. 
The nightmares immediately stopped. Elin has only had one nightmare in the last seven weeks, and that was on the only night in that time span we broke our discipline of praying over our children before we went to bed. 
​​

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    *The views and ideas on this site are in no way affiliated with any organization, business, or individuals we are a part of or work with. They're also not theological certainties. They're simply thinking out loud, on issues and difficulties as I process things.

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