This post is regarding spiritual warfare. If that isn’t your cup of tea…good luck with that you will want to skip this post.
Our son is 9 1/2 years old and is in a bit of a transitional stage from little kid to big kid. We have homeschooled and I am very conservative about what the children watch. Considering my background which was strict UPC (United Pentecostal Church) owning a tv was prohibited for the first 15 years of my life… not that we didn’t own one (we did on and off – that’s another story) this is not surprising. My husband did not grow up with the same strict standard. It’s funny, we didn’t go to movies but I watched Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon and Remington Steele on a regular basis. I do not allow shows with magic (thinly veiled witchcraft or not so veiled witchcraft – No Princess Sophia), bad attitudes (especially toward authority – No Sponge Bob), and no shows with bickering, fighting, back biting. We watch a lot of innocent “little kid” shows like Peppa Pig, Doc McStuffins, Puppy Dog pals and Tom and Jerry. Having said that, I have been allowing our son to watch more LEGO shows like the LEGO Star Wars (Star Wars but no one really dies), LEGO Super Hero shows…I will watch with him occasionally but not all the time.
Side note on this…if you are concerned about any show, instead of just watching it, listen to it. When my daughter was little, she would get obsessed with watching certain shows over and over. One evening I was cooking dinner while she watched this popular movie (a little older). I had noticed a day or so earlier that she was yelling at her dad. She’s a daddy’s girl for sure but she was being ugly with him. As I listened to the show, I realized the main character yelled at her dad. I turned it off and told her we were taking a break from it because I didn’t like how the girl was speaking to her father. I still have that movie “vaulted” as we say. Another show she was watching was Spirit…she loves horses. It’s a show on Netflix about this kids and their horses. (We have since cancelled Netflix) Again, while cooking dinner I was listening to the dialog. The characters on the show all preteen girls (I believe) were making plans and telling their parents what they were going to do….not asking but telling. They treated the father figure on the show as if they were smarter and wiser than he. He was always going along with them. We don’t watch that show any more either…back to the story of the nightmares….
Before Christmas, I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He told me about one LEGO Star Wars set he wanted and a set called LEGO Bionicles. LEGO Bionicleslook kind of creepy to me and usually, I trust my gut on this but it’s LEGO and most of the LEGO things are cool plus they teach kids design and creativity. LEGO discontinued making Bionicals so I found one on eBAY. All I could remember was he wanted a green one. I got a green one. He as excited to receive a LEGO Bionicle for Christmas.
Just to put this in perspective, I do not buy my kids (or myself or my husband) anything with skulls on it. I feel this perpetuates a death mentality and we are “life” people not “death” people. I AM SUPER CONSERVATIVE because I feel strongly that physical things can have spiritual connotations AND that garbage in equals garbage out.
Apparently, there is a Bionicle show that is aired on the Cartoon network (or one of those kids networks). Nic had asked to watch the show. I allowed him to but did not watch with him.
Fast forward to 20 days after Christmas…for the second or third time in three weeks I was awoken by my son screaming out in his sleep. He often tells me of dreams he has had and we regularly discuss how God speaks to us through our dreams sometimes and what God might be trying to communicate to him. Because of his history (foster care and then adoption), in the past he would sometimes have nightmares. I would have to wake him all the way up, send him to the bathroom (all the way awake) in order to get him to stop fighting. After inquiring about the dreams, he rarely remembers what they were about. I have prayed and rebuked demonic spirits, soul ties and generational curses off of both my children. That seemed to stop the dreams. Then they started up again. Last night at 4 a.m. I heard him in his room and I started praying. I simply asked God, “Have we allowed something in the house that would cause these nightmares? If so, what?” IMMEDIATELY I saw a picture of the Bionicle in my head.
I began investigaing….the LEGO website doesn’t describe the series this bluntly but Wikapedia.org says this:
After reading this, I began to suspect, something had gotten its foot in the door. I don’t think it was the Bionicle. I’m pretty sure the foot in the door was me. We have had a lot going on and my escape it pretty much Netflix. Over Christmas break I watched several series on Netflix. Overall, I’ve been distracted. Every January our church has a season of fasting and I felt the Holy Spirit (the Holy Ghost for my Holy Roller readers) leading me to fast from media and not just the 21 days prescribed by our church but a Firstfruits of the year fast (36 days). As a family we are “fasting” from media. While fasting from media I have been listening to podcasts and audio recordings from some of my favorite ministries including Gateway church, especially their Freedom ministries. One of the recordings I listened to was about raising healthy families. The speakers were the Jobes…the parents of Kari Jobe (their fruit seems to indicate they know what they are talking about). It’s worth a listen.
This morning I talked to our son about the Bionicle and suggested that we pray about what we should do. I talked to him about holiness and what it means to be “set apart for the Father’s use”. We talked about the first two commandments…You shall have no other gods before me and make no graven images. Tonight as a family we prayed, asked God’s forgiveness and we asked our son to pray about what he should do with the Bionicle. We will give him a couple of days and see what he says. We also prayed that any demons associated with the actual object would be cast out of our home, in Jesus name.
That’s what we did.
It’s a season for cleaning house.
It’s a season of examining our lives for strongholds.
There is going to be calling back to prayer for individuals, churches and the Body of Christ as a whole. We are about to experience new seasons of intercession. There was a wave a few years ago of people setting up War rooms and starting to pray for their families and that’s good. This next season there will be a calling to intercession (a calling back for some people) and a calling into spiritual warfare.
David didn’t step out onto a battlefield for the first time when he fought Goliath. David had some times all alone, at night in a pasture when he encountered some lions and bears. Lions and bears are on your home front. You battle those before you face a giant. The lion and the bear prepare you to face the giant. You know God’s got the giant because He already gave you a lion and a bear.
Check your windows and check your doors. Ask the Holy Spirit if you have left any doors ajar. This is the season to handle the small things and secure your perimeter.
Footnote: the boy chose to get rid of the Bionicle. We actually threw it away because we didn’t want another family to get it and have similar issues.
Ezekiel Regiment 