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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Strength to Equal Your Days-Discerning Spiritual Warfare from Life's Hardships
Navigating the complex landscape of spiritual warfare requires wisdom, discernment, and a solid foundation in Christ. Every believer faces it, but few know how to recognize when something is a spiritual attack versus life's natural hardships or God's refining work.
We unpack the critical differences between spiritual warfare and other forms of struggle. Spiritual warfare often reveals itself through repetitive cycles of things going wrong, sudden intense discouragement, disruptions before ministry opportunities, or opposition that feels disproportionate to the situation. Yet not everything difficult is an attack—sometimes God allows hardship to deepen our faith, build character, or display His glory through our faithfulness, as seen in Job's story.
Whether facing spiritual warfare, life's hardships, or God's refining process, our response remains consistent: sit in your identity, walk in obedience, and stand in truth. We're praying for you to have the discernment to recognize what you're facing and the peace to respond with confidence in Christ's victory.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us. Welcome everyone to our podcast today. We are so delighted that you are with us. We are continuing in our series based on the devotional strength to equal your days, and today we're going to be talking about something that affects every believer in reality, and that is spiritual warfare in our everyday life. So we're going to talk a little bit about what spiritual warfare is. We're going to talk about how to recognize it, how to respond to it, and we also want to recognize how to not confuse it with other things. So we're going to talk a little bit about that too.
Speaker 2:Spiritual warfare often shows up in the subtle ways. It shows up in things like unexpected conflict, discouragement or opposition right before we're about to obey God and enter into something that he has for us. When I think of spiritual warfare, I always think about Ephesians 6, where we're told to put on the full armor. But Ephesians 6, 12 specifically says our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And yet, at the same time, we live in a broken world, and not every hard thing is necessarily the devil attacking us. Sometimes it's just life. And, elizabeth, I think that's a real question that we have to wrestle with when we're trying to identify what is spiritual warfare right.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's where it gets really tricky, because sometimes God allows us to go through seasons where he feels silent, like we talked about over the last couple of podcasts. We were talking about how sometimes he feels like he pulls back so that the roots can grow deeper in him, and sometimes he uses difficult situations to refine us, not to harm us. So you have to look at every situation in your life and also in the lives of people we love and go okay, is this spiritual warfare or is this a natural hardship, or is this even the loving discipline?
Speaker 2:of God. Yeah, and I think there's a couple of passages of Scripture, a couple of different places. I think there's a couple of different places in Scripture where we can see that playing out. One is Deuteronomy 8, and verse 2 says remember how the Lord, your God, led you all the way to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart. And in that example we see that sometimes those hardships that we walk through, that's God testing us or teaching us in his classroom, so to speak. It's not necessarily an attack of spiritual warfare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember back when I was in seminary, actually in classrooms learning about God and Kimberly. You have a very similar experience. We both went through some very dark and painful things while also being in seminary, and a phrase that I heard while I was in seminary was talking about God's unwritten curriculum and really talking about how, while we are preparing to be in ministry, yes, there's the things you're doing in the classroom, but there's also all these things that God is doing in our lives to build us, to grow our character, to grow our faith in Him, to grow our character, to grow our faith in him. But also he does it for his glory, because there's a very well-known story in scripture, the story of Job, that I don't particularly like, if I'm just really honest.
Speaker 1:But the gist of the book of Job is God allows Satan free reign to do whatever he wants to do to Job, except for take his life.
Speaker 1:Because the premise is Satan's like oh, he's just faithful to you because you've blessed him so much, and would he still remain faithful to you if you took everything away? So every you know, his children die, his livestock dies, he has physical problems with boils on his skin, like everything you can think of happens to Job, and the test is will Job still remain faithful? And so I think that whole story of Job yeah, it was about growing Job's faith, because I do believe that happened in that, but it was also for the greater glory of God, and that is a hard one to wrestle with, kimberly, is this whole question of why does God allow bad things to happen, and what we see as pain and negative God is sometimes seeing as a way to display his glory, and so there's a lot of layers to this that I don't think we need to be so quick to call everything spiritual warfare, but we also don't need to be quick to not understand that we do have an enemy who's trying to come against us.
Speaker 2:When we think about Job, the reality was he didn't get attacked because he had done something wrong. God allowed things in his life to test him and to reveal what was deeper. And so here's the challenge when someone that we love is struggling, I think we often want to rescue them, we want to fix it. I mean, if we're really honest, I think most of us are fixers to a certain degree, and sometimes we have to recognize that God may have actually put that person in that struggle for a holy reason.
Speaker 1:But that's so hard, kimberly, because we do out of love sometimes and, if I'm honest, sometimes out of my own Savior complex that I can struggle with. If I think I could fix it for you, kimberly, my family, people that I love very deeply, I want to rush in and fix. But you're right, sometimes maybe God has spent six months to a year getting that person in those set of circumstances because there's something he wants to shape in their character and we can actually interfere with their growth. I don't know a whole lot about plants, because all I do to plants is kill them growth. I don't know a whole lot about plants because all I do to plants is kill them. But I know that if you're trying to grow healthy plants, you can't give it too much water, you can't give it too much sun. There's ways that we can overstep our bounds in trying to care for things that don't allow the roots to go down as deep as they need to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about Hebrews 12, in verses 10 through 11, it says that God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in his holiness, and that's kind of what you're saying. And it goes on to say it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So there's that idea that, like you mentioned, you mentioned and we talked about last week, our roots go deeper, in the midst of struggle at times, and or they have the opportunity to and it's also an opportunity. Sometimes God is disciplining us and sometimes he is teaching us and sometimes he's trying to raise us up and different you know, there's lots of different words to use there for what he could be doing, but at the end of the day, it's what we see here is that idea that he wants us to share in his holiness. He wants us to be able to truly be his children that produce a harvest of righteousness and peace children that produce a harvest of righteousness and peace.
Speaker 1:So, kimberly, sometimes, if we're not discerning correctly what God calls refining fire, we call spiritual warfare, but also, on the flip side, sometimes, what might be a demonic assault or something of the enemy coming against us. We talk about it being just a hard season. So how do we begin to understand the difference between the two?
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good thought and a good question to ask, and I think that we have to take the principle that James 1.5 gives us, which says if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God and it will be given to you, because it is hard to know those things. We don't have the mind of God, we don't see the things that God sees, the way he sees them, and so we really have to ask him and lean into his wisdom and try to discern. And it's hard, it's hard. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think back to one thing that we talk about when it comes to godly and ungodly burden bearing. In the Journey series that we've done on the podcast and also the conference we do, you know, we often quote those two verses in Galatians, where Galatians 6 says carry each other's burden. So that sounds like I'm supposed to step in and help when my friends are dealing with hardship. But it also says three verses later each one should carry their own load. And so it's like well, which one is it? And that's how, when we're talking about the for Jesus to do box, we often ask those questions of you know God, is this you, is this my assignment, and what is my part and what is the timing. And so I think it is about what you said in James 1.5 and asking wisdom from him. But bringing it kind of back down to our own lives for a minute, or the lives of our loved ones, I think you have to kind of look at the fruit of what's going on, because if you think about the fruit of the Spirit, we've done a series on that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Those are the fruits of God's spirit.
Speaker 1:Now, that doesn't mean that things can't be hard and confusing. But if what's happening with this person is a lot of fear, a lot of confusion, a lot of anxiousness, you know it says that the Lord doesn't give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and a sound mind. And so I think sometimes we've got to look at the situation that they find themselves in and kind of determine okay, yeah, it can be hard, but at its core, what is this producing? Is this situation this person is in or is the circumstance swirling around this person trying to make them feel that Jesus is able to walk out on the water and be with them in the midst of the storm? Or is this situation trying to make them feel like God has abandoned you, he's not going to answer your prayers, he would never love you because of what you've done?
Speaker 1:And you see two very different types of fruit in those situations. And so oftentimes, when I'm trying to determine, am I hearing God, am I not? You always take it back to scripture and if anything is trying to say to me I'm unloved, I'm unwanted, I'm not cared for, god will not be there for me. Obviously, that's not the voice of my shepherd, because the sheep know the shepherd's voice, and so we kind of have to look at a little bit of the fruit of what's going on in the situation to even figure out is this something we need to pray against or is this a deeper work that God wants to do?
Speaker 2:I think there are some patterns that we can see when we look at what spiritual warfare actually looks like, and that's another way to discern what's going on. And so if we really look at those patterns, this is what we can see. If it's if you're experiencing spiritual warfare, there actually will be a repetitive pattern to it.
Speaker 2:Things tend to keep going wrong in a cycle yeah um, and so there's a repetitive nature and if we look, look at that, if we see that, if we see a repetitive pattern, we can go wait, maybe this is spiritual warfare. Another thing is a sudden and intense sense of discouragement or confusion. So when we feel confusion, oppression or discouragement, kind of out of nowhere, that can be a sign of an attack of spiritual warfare. Yeah, another thing is, in particular, is a disruption in relationships or in our life or in our well-being of some kind, right before we're doing some ministry or right before, god knows, we might be having a spiritual breakthrough.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's very real and that can look like spiritual warfare or that can be spiritual warfare. Yeah, that can be spiritual warfare. Yeah, and then one of the other things is if we are having opposition that feels like it is out of proportion to the particular situation that it arises from, that can also be spiritual warfare, because you're sensing a resistance in your spirit that feels disproportionate to what really is going on, and I think all of those things are definite pieces of spiritual warfare.
Speaker 2:And so while there may be times that God is refining us, sometimes it is just life At the same time. If we see some of those patterns, or that discouragement or confusion, or the disruption or the opposition, then we can go wait. Maybe that is spiritual warfare and that's when we ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially that last one. You said, kimberly, about opposition. That feels out of proportion. It reminds me of a phrase that I remember mom saying growing up and I adopted, which is the enemy always overplays his hand. And what she meant by that is if spiritual warfare was coming at her.
Speaker 1:Maybe the first two things she didn't catch on and you know, the fight that broke out with her husband or whatever was going on in the family just felt like life. But it's kind of like he kind of always pushes the envelope one step too far and at some point, you know and it also may just be my spirit getting in tune with God's spirit and finally listening to him to go hello, there's more going on here than just this fight you're having with your husband right now. But it always feels like one too many things goes wrong, like that cycle you were talking about, and all of a sudden I kind of snapped to attention and go, wait a minute, this is bigger than just us. There are other forces at work here that are trying to tear this relationship apart. So I think those are great things to keep in mind as far as when you think you or someone you love might be under some type of spiritual attack.
Speaker 1:I also find in those situations it is good to know, especially when I'm thinking about another person is it spiritual warfare, or is this a time or a season where they're refining that person so that I check my own actions? But what does it hurt to pray for God? If there's anything that is coming from the enemy that's trying to attack me, would you just, you know, just let the power of who you are deal with it. It never hurts to pray a warfare prayer against whatever is coming against you or someone else, and if it lightens up then you're like huh, I guess that was spiritual warfare. If it continues, then maybe you start asking questions about okay, God, what are you trying to do in my life? Or what are you trying to do in the life of my loved one through this very difficult circumstance that I wish was not a part of their life right now?
Speaker 2:So, elizabeth, with that backdrop, I think it can be helpful to really look at, step back a little bit and look at the structure of the book of Ephesians. I read Ephesians 6.12 when we started the podcast, where it talks about our struggles, not against the flesh and blood. So we I mean that chapter six is where we go often when we're thinking about spiritual warfare itself. But if we really look at the structure of the book of Ephesians, the order matters and if we really look at Ephesians, chapters one through three, we can see that Paul is really speaking to what it means to live in your identity, because the reality is that, like you said, we are going to have to live differently to understand what's happening. Is it spiritual warfare? Is it something else? How do we discern it? That's going to have to be a lifestyle for us.
Speaker 2:If we really look at Ephesians chapter 1 through 3, we see Paul telling us sit in your identity, live in your identity, understand who you are, who God made you to be. And then he moves on in chapter 4 and through the beginning of chapter 6, through about verse 9, he says I want you to walk in obedience now. Now that you know who you are now walk in obedience. And then in Ephesians 6, 10 through 18, he says now stand in that victory, because in order to be an effective warrior in God's kingdom, we have to be rightly related to him in those areas, in our position to him, our obedience to him and standing with him. So I think there's a way in Strengths Equal your Days, where you or your mom have really fleshed that out in a clearer way, to think about it. What is that, elizabeth?
Speaker 1:In Strengths Equal your Days. There is a devotional that we wrote called Sit, walk and Stand. There is a devotional that we wrote called Sit, walk and Stand, and it is this whole idea that you don't wait for the warfare to come to get yourself ready. I mean, every day we're waking up in the midst of a war because, as the verses you read Kimberly at the beginning of the podcast, we are in a struggle all the time. It may not feel like it, like I've had a pretty good day today, so I really haven't been thinking about spiritual warfare, but then when the thing happens that causes you discomfort or hurt or harm, then all of a sudden I start focusing on spiritual warfare. But the fact of the matter is we're always living in a war. But the other great part is is Jesus has already won the victory. So it's just a matter of living out the victory. But how we have to do that is what you've just so beautifully described for us, which is we have to understand our identity in Him and understand our position as being seated at the right hand of Christ. We are beloved sons and daughters of God Most High. We are seated with Him in heavenly places and we have to ground ourselves in that so that when the attacks of the enemy comes, it's not so easy to throw us off kilter because we know what is true and we have this position of authority in our covenant relationship with Him that we've been talking about a lot throughout the spring here and so that's.
Speaker 1:I find it very fascinating that the first three chapters are all about that in Ephesians, and then he spends another two chapters talking about okay, because of this identity, you're going to choose to walk in obedience, you're going to walk your faith out through practical expressions of holiness and you're going to clothe yourself in God's armor, which is basically you're clothing yourself with Jesus as you put on the armor of God. And so, and in what many considered the spiritual warfare guide of Ephesians, he doesn't even get to the battle part until chapter six. And that the part that is focused in on the standing and holding firm even then, it's not telling us to fight. We're to put on the armor and then stand, and we've talked about that before some that we hold firm in the strength of God and we can engage in prayer. We can pray for ourselves, we can pray for others, but the victory is already assured in Him.
Speaker 1:So if we would take the time to truly understand who we are in Him, live a life of obedience in response to that beautiful love that he has given us, then the standing against the spiritual warfare becomes so much easier, because it's not I have to get ready, it's, I am ready, and so I love that. You'll notice, ephesians 6.10 begins with finally indicating that all of these other things we've just talked about, like Paul's, like you can't get to the warfare and the fighting, the warfare and pushing back the warfare until you've taken the time to truly understand your position in Christ and living a lifestyle of obedience. And so that's why it's so important. We talk about it a lot around here and everyone's like we know what you're going to say next, which is understanding who you are in.
Speaker 1:Christ and who God is is so important because everything goes back to that. Those are the deep roots, that is the strength. To equal your days is to understand more of who he is and more of who you are in him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like you said, elizabeth, we have talked about the idea of standing before, but if you haven't heard that podcast yet, you can go back. There's the Spiritual Warfare podcast. I think we've released it a couple of times actually, but the word stand means to remain. It's implying that the land is already God's.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And therefore it's ours. So we don't need to struggle to occupy the ground that Christ has already won. But what we do need to do is stand in Him. Only those who sit in Christ and walk in obedience can stand firm. Only we can assault the gates of hell when there's spiritual warfare. Only we can enforce the complete victory of Christ Jesus, resting in the knowledge that the battle's the Lord's. You can't stand firm if you haven't learned to sit in that identity, and you can't stand firm if you haven't practiced walking in obedience. Those are the two things that give you the ability to stand in Christ.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, I think oftentimes we feel like we should be doing more. But that word stand is an active word. It's not a passive thing. To stand, it's like standing in a hurricane, where you have to use every bit of your strength to stay grounded. And as you're talking, kimberly, I'm just thinking all the way back to the beginning. Go back to Genesis.
Speaker 1:Adam and Eve forgot who they were and they forgot what they needed to do to be obedient.
Speaker 1:And that is when the enemy was able to come in and cause them to fall into temptation and where all this spiritual warfare started and this fallen world that we're living in.
Speaker 1:And so if they had truly held on to their identity of who they were and who God was to them, that he was a loving father who was not holding out on them, and if they had walked in obedience to what God had told them you can eat anything you want, just don't touch this one tree then they would have been able to stand and have victory against the enemy when the enemy came at them. So it sounds like that's not very powerful. I think. A lot of times we think we got to go find the super Christian out there who knows how to pray the powerful prayers and pray for us, in a certain way, to be able to push back any spiritual warfare that's coming against us. But I think the true beauty and the true strength comes from what you're talking about, kimberly, of standing, sitting in your identity and walking in your obedience, therefore allowing you to be strong enough to have those deep roots of the tree that we keep talking about, to be able to stand against the winds that come against you.
Speaker 2:In addition to that, I think that the other way that we can really handle or fight against spiritual warfare or general hardship, as we've talked about too, is to think about two terms that I heard your mom use early on when we talked to her, and those two words she called our weapons, and that is praise and rest. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, because I think it's beautiful when you guys talk about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think of Psalm 149.6 that says Let the high praises of God be in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hands. And there's this beautiful. There's several places in the Psalms and even in the Old Testament. There are many times when the armies were going out to war, they put the worshipers at the front and the worshipers went before the soldiers. And I often joke about I don't know, I want to be a part of that worship team, like you want us to be where.
Speaker 1:But they understood the power of proclaiming who God is, so that the power of simply sometimes all you need to do to push back the enemy is not speak to him or tell him where he needs to go or push back on any of that, but simply stand proclaiming who God is, that he is greater and that he is over all, and the victory is already his. Because the devil knows that. He knows exactly how this story ends he's just trying to cause as much damage as he can along the way. And so, as we learn to come, whether you are in a place of hardship, there's many times I have felt very in a very dark and a discouraged place and I've asked God what do I need to do, and his answer has been you need to sing, and I hate that answer because I don't feel like singing. But he knows the best thing for me to do to help me get in a better place is to simply spend time worshiping him and declaring who he is. So I think praise is a very powerful weapon. And then rest, and what I mean by that is you are able to be at peace on the inside, because I don't have to strive to make it happen. I'm going to rest in the one who I know has already completed it and already has the victory.
Speaker 1:You know, psalm 91 is a familiar verse to many of us and it says rest in the one who I know has already completed it and already has the victory. You know, psalm 91 is a familiar verse to many of us and it says he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty, and that psalm sometimes is called the soldier psalm or a battle psalm, because it's all about God fighting our battles. For us and I love that it begins with your place is to dwell in the shelter of the Most High and rest in the shadow of the Almighty, and I think a lot of times when I hear that imagery I think of like a mama bird that's got her wing out and it's got her baby, little baby chicks underneath her wing and all they got to do is stay right there and mama's going to protect them. And in so many ways, our great God he's like. I'm not asking you to strive, I'm not asking you to worry. A lot of times he's not even asking us to fight, just to rest in the knowledge of who he is and that he's going to take care of all of this and just kind of sit back and watch what he wants to do.
Speaker 2:What I really like when I think about the word rest also, is it's actually saying if you have the ability to rest, to choose the weapon of rest, you are saying I trust God more than I fear the enemy.
Speaker 1:That's huge, that's huge.
Speaker 2:I don't usually live that way. No, I'm honest.
Speaker 1:No, I honestly come to God and go. Do you see that? Are you paying attention? Do you see this?
Speaker 2:over here. Do you see this giant coming at me? Come on, yeah, yeah, but I think that's a powerful way to look at it. And so you know, praise and rest are weapons. They are our secret weapons to fight against hardship and spiritual warfare in spiritual warfare. So if you're in the middle of confusion, fatigue, resistance, whatever it is, opposition, ask God, is this natural hardship? Is this something you want me to learn from? Is this something you're taking me through? Is this something that I'm just going to have to walk through because you're going to use it somehow in my life, or am I under spiritual attack?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and no matter which one it is, whether it's warfare, hardship or refinement, our responses can be the same, kimberly we can sit in our identity, we can walk in obedience and we can stand in truth.
Speaker 2:We can also praise boldly like he's already won, we can rest deeply like it's not your job to fix it all, and we can recognize that we don't do the rescuing where God is refining.
Speaker 1:That's the hardest one, especially when it comes to kids and loved ones and people that you really want. You know you want to make it easier for them, but all of us have to go through trials in order to strengthen us. So, either way, it's time for everyone to take a deep breath. Don't freak out and just take your place, sit in your identity, walk in the obedience that God has told you what to do, and stand firm and let the Lord fight for you.
Speaker 2:So just know that we are praying for you this week. We are praying for discernment and peace specifically over you today and the rest of this week. Thanks for joining us today and we look forward to you being with us next time to hear more.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwthefathersbusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
