Week 5: Spiritual Warfare

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."
I Peter 5:10 (NIV)

Richland Creek

This week we spent camping at Richland Creek in the Ozarks National Forest with YWAM Madison's Rescue Ops DTS, totaling around 50 people. We also brought along our speaker for a couple days, Kevin Rusack, with the topic "Spiritual Warfare". Kevin was only taught us on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving Thursday morning, which you'll understand why later. If I could take one thing out of the teaching we received for those two days, it would be the magnitude at which our actions affect the spiritual realm and how we do make a difference in the power the Enemy has. I know that statement sounds vague, but it really stood out to me as a mere human that I could make a difference through praying, worshiping, and preaching the Word. A more extended list of things that stood out to me follows:

- Spiritual Warfare is not simply a "prayer prayed" or a "demon rebuked", rather it is a lifestyle

- The two extremes of Spiritual War is over-emphasis and under-emphasis (believing that demons are a part of all bad activity or that the Enemy isn't really there and can be ignored; both of which are not helpful)

- We should be aware but not impressed of the Devil's power

- ADD MORE

Besides the lessons Kevin gave us, we had camp activities as well. We split all of the students up into 4 groups, each with members from YWAM Ozarks and Madison, with which we did the activities. We learned about building shelters, starting fires with flint and magnesium, purifying water, handling medical situations, and being able to navigate around with a map and compass. We also went for a small hike to see a couple waterfalls, one of which was Twin Falls (shown below).

Twin Falls

Those events were during the afternoons of Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday morning we had our Solo time, which, if you remember from my last backpacking trip, is a 2.5 hour time span of us each going out into nature by ourselves and spending time with God in nature. After a bit of wandering downstream, I found a little strip of water that I sat by for my Solo (shown below). During the Solo, I finished up I Kings, which I had been reading through on my own time. I spent a bit more time looking over I Peter 5:10 as well as well as II Corinthians 4:16-18, but more on that later.

And then Thursday afternoon came along. We were informed during lunch that we would be packing up camp and departing for a new campsite, but there was a catch. We would be hiking out with just our teams, with tarps for shelter instead of tents, without a set trail to follow, and with only flint and magnesium to start a fire. We had a leader, navigator, and radio operator assigned for each team, the navigator given a map showing where we would be hiking to and staying the night. My team's hiking trail went from the camp to a road several miles (through brush and hills) away, where we would be picked up the following day at noon. I was stoked (and naive). We packed up all we could, had our gear checked, got our food for the next day, and left camp around 2:45pm. Our designation followed the same trail we hiked to Twin Falls (which took about an hour) and once we got there we bush-wacked uphill for about twice the distance it took us to get to Twin Falls. Eventually we came to a random very eery-looking house surrounded by fog and barb-wired fences. We knew we were close to the road at this point, but couldn't find a way around the house in the direction we were going, so we decided to follow a trail that was inside the barb-wired fence, but not necessarily on the property, and then we came up to another house that we knew was on the road; we weren't sure if the trail we were following would bring us to the road, so we quickly went under another barb-wired fence, over a wooden fence, and walked down the very long dirt driveway until we got past the gate and got on the road.

The first eery house

Thank you to the Steen's for giving us a shortcut to the road!

 We got to the road at about 6:30, very content because we knew that we were where we needed to be and didn't have to do any hiking in the morning. Our next thing to do was find a place to set up shelter for the night, so we walked down a bit and found a fallen tree a little ways into the forest that looked ideal to lay some tarps over, which is just what we did. We put a tarp under the fallen tree and draped two tarps over it, holding them down with rocks, rope, and sticks. We changed into dry clothes, got our dinners (these dinners were MRE's - Meals Ready-to-Eat - and were not good... at all), and piled all 12 of us into this small shelter. We started trying to go to bed at 7:30pm, which is when the longest night of my life began. We were all still freezing cold, it was raining and windy, causing the tarps to get loose from what held them down and got those of us closest to the outside wet and pounded in the face with cold wind. We were able to sleep in intervals of two to three hours before waking up again, seemingly simultaneously. The rest I had that evening was as follows:

8:00-10:00pm - Unsteady sleep/Expecting a bear to come and maul me as I was laying half outside the tarp

10:00pm-1:00am - Not being able to sleep whatsoever, resulting in me and a few others telling and solving riddles and telling extremely cheesy jokes

1:00-4:00am - Unsteady sleep again and feeling as if my feet were going to fall off as they were being pinched between two other people, resulting in me giving up all attempts to sleep inside the tarp and just letting my whole body except for my head lay outside the tarp

4:00-7:00am - Sleep extremely well surprisingly, waking up at 7:00 to the sunrise, realizing that there was nothing to be done until they picked us up, went back to sleep

7:00am-10:00am - Sleep/slowly woke up and ate breakfast

By 10:00 we had finally received a radio call from one of the staff (we had been trying since last night, turns out the area they told us to make camp was too far away from the base camp) who was going out for a drive. We communicated with them and told them we were on the right road, but for some reason it was very difficult for us to make that clear to them. Eventually, a man rode down, from the house whose yard we ran across, in a four-wheeler to us (we assumed he was Mr. Steen) to find out why his dog had been barking last night and this morning. When he found out we were simply hikers and we were waiting for our rides to pick us up, he offered help by letting us know exactly where we were and offering to give socks to those of us who didn't bring an extra pair and our only pair was soaking wet. He was a big help in telling the staff via radio where we were, and we were picked up around 11:30, concluding our adventure in the Ozarks National Forest.

Our humble abode

Bonding happened that night

Shout-out to Mr. Steen! (The elderly gentleman on the four-wheeler)

Besides the teachings and adventures I had this week, God had been working inside of me as well. Ever since last week when I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me and introduce a new career option, I have been wrestling and getting quite frustrated with the whole scenario. I know that this time now is a time of confirmation and waiting on the Lord to make things clear for me, and I know that I don't need to know right now because there's not much I can do to further that decision being in Arkansas with YWAM, which I am thankful for. But I've been finding myself frustrated with God putting me in a position where I don't know what is going to happen in the future and for making me feel like I'm being pulled this way and that without apparent reason. I really wanted to figure out what in the world God was thinking and why He has been putting me through this, when I looked at my nametag on the door to my room.

This really hit home for me, and I was then led to the following verses as well:

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
Psalm 51:10-12 (NIV)

The last sentence of that passage screamed out to me to restore joy into my life and for me to have a willing spirit as God was calling me to trust Him in this next part of my life. Going into the camping trip, I was still struggling and battling internally, when during one evening after worship a friend noticed the subdued spirit I had. He asked me, "Are you having growing pains man?" Immediately I lifted my head up and couldn't help but smile.
"That is the best possible word I could use right now." I replied.
"The Holy Spirit gave it to me to tell you."
That moment I knew that what was going on in my life right now was for the best, I didn't fully understand what was going on exactly, but I had a much more optimistic view of it.

Another time while camping, a different friend of mine talked to me and asked how I was doing since the experience I had (I had vocalized what the Holy Spirit had seemingly showed me to the whole class and staff). I did my best to express what I was feeling and she totally understood. She too had gone a drastic change in her life, I'd say worse than mine, and talked to me about how she had been dealing with her change and what had been helping her. She spoke truth into my scenario and lead me to I Peter 5:10 which I read during my Solo. It goes as follows:

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." (NIV)

After reading this I was also lead to this passage:

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
II Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)

A sight we were fortunate enough to pass by on our bush-wacking adventure

 There could be no better phrase than growing pains to encapsulate what I've been going through the past week. It still is easier said than done the concept of "it will all be worth it in the end", but it is so true, and I have to keep reassuring it to myself day by day. Thankfully I am able to have great friends who can show me light in this darkness and lend wise words in times of my foolishness. Above all else though, I am thankful for the Holy Spirit teaching me as I go and the Word to constantly bring me back to God and His perfect will.