Spiritual Autobiography and Spiritual Warfare
Leaving:
Consider the role of spiritual warfare in your spiritual autobiography. This page can help you find the place for deliverance from spiritual warfare in your story through spiritual journaling. As much as we don't like to think about the darkness and bondage we carry with us in our lives, there is freedom to gain by exploring these darker places in our spiritual journal.
When I think about the spiritual warfare in my story, I start in my neighbor's yard. One of my neighbors has a yard that’s impeccable. By the looks of it, there are no surprises allowed. Everything seems purposefully placed. I suspect that no seed gets to grow unless it was planted deliberately. I think we might annoy our neighbors because of the way we groom our yard. We don’t really groom it at all. Beyond the necessary weeding and mowing, what grows is on its own. Our garden runs a bit wild. I do my best to respect my neighbors by picking up the remnants of my weeding at the point where our yard meets theirs. I don’t think my efforts are really enough to please some of the people in our neighborhood who have a higher standard for lawn maintenance. I think they really want us to edge our grass and neatly manicure our gardens. The yearly homeowner’s association letter always includes yard maintenance suggestions that we don’t employ.
When I was a kid I loved my yard even though it grew a little wild. My dad mowed and trimmed within reason but he didn't manicure the grounds. Such attention was unnecessary. Everything was beautiful all on its own and we didn't try to control the beauty or improve on it. What God had made for us was quite acceptable. Today, I tend to my yard with the same yard logic I was raised with. I find it no surprise that my backyard is beautiful to me. God did a good job creating its beauty. Beauty isn't something I had to leave behind. When I grew up, and moved away from some of the most beautiful places I had known, I discovered that God's beautiful world came right along with me.
Leaving my childhood home for my new home in Michigan was hard. There was so much that I was leaving behind. I was so afraid that nothing new could compare to what I once had. I was wrong. Beauty came right along with me. It has been my traveling blessing. What are your traveling blessings and what place do they have in your spiritual autobiography? What good things have remained constant in your life? What remains with you despite the ups and downs of your journey?
Often our down moments feel very dark and difficult to overcome. They become a sort of spiritual warfare lesson. If we overcome we have defeated the darkness, and if we let the darkness overtake us it is difficult to find the light. The spirituality of our ups and downs has power. Simply finding the beauty around us can become like a spiritual warfare prayer, because when we start seeing the goodness the darkness loses much power. Spiritual warfare prayers can be said by simply drawing out the blessings in the world and pushing back the darkness. It's not so much what we say but how we choose to live that allows us to overcome the darkest of situations. It's the choice to find God around us that becomes a prayer leading to deliverance from what is most dark and difficult. Choosing to find the light brings us great freedom and can become the inspiration to share our spiritual story.