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What Exactly is Spiritual Warfare? · Arise Women of God

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  Have you ever had a day where you just felt a little bit off?
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  Maybe a wave of worthlessness hit you out of the middle of nowhere and you felt so isolated and unseen that you just wanted to hide from the world?
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  Perhaps you're starting to wonder what exactly is spiritual warfare because you're tired of what feels like spiritual attacks.
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  You want to know if these dark feelings and thoughts are just a character flaw in you or if there's an active enemy trying to trip you up.
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  Well, my friend, you are in the right place.
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  I felt that way before.
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  By the end of today's episode, you will be able to distinguish between your true authentic self and the negative interference of the adversary.
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  We're going to help you solve the pain of spiritual discouragement by pulling back the curtain on the weak point strategy and sharing a raw story of a high school senior who almost let the enemy steal her joy.
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  Moving from blindly struggling to seeing the battle more clearly.
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  Stay tuned.
• 1:03
  Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes.
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  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
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  I'm your host, Tamara K.
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  Anderson, and joining me today is the magnificent Wendi Christensen, who happens to be my co founder of Women warriors of Light and is a fantastic licensed clinical social worker with over 30 years of experience.
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  And the great thing about having Wendi with us today is that she is going to help us tackle this not only from a Christian counselor perspective, but with all those years of experience as we examine what exactly is
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  spiritual warfare.
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  When we talk about warfare, our minds immediately go to epic movies like Braveheart or Harry Potter battling the darkness or perhaps even the battle between light and darkness in Star Wars.
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  But spiritual warfare is rarely that loud or that easy to see, as Paul tells us in Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verses 3 and 4.
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  For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
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  I love that verse because it teaches us that spiritual warfare is real and when we have God on our side, we can pull down the adversary's stronghold.
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  Spiritual warfare is about the battle between light and darkness.
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  Wendy has a great way of describing how this doesn't always look like a Hollywood script.
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  All right, Wendy, this is a good question.
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  What is spiritual warfare?
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  It's anything that causes you to feel like you're not yourself in a negative way.
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  I would say it's not always like a dramatic movie scene where you this isn't a brave heart that we're Walking into.
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  But it kind of feels that way, honestly, sometimes where you really are walking into this battle of good versus evil.
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  Any good story has a good versus evil, right?
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  Yes.
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  And the character arc is how the main character develops through that battle between good and evil.
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  And so spiritual warfare is that spiritual battle of light and darkness within us.
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  Yes, right, absolutely.
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  And us learning to use the tools that God has given us and battling the adversary and all those negative things that he throws at us day in and day out.
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  Oh, it's exhausting, but it's so real.
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  It is, it is.
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  If we are in a battle, we have to realize that the adversary is a tactician.
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  He doesn't strike randomly.
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  He looks for where our armor is the thinnest or the weakest.
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  Perhaps he targets our sense of worth and our identity as a daughter of God.
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  He seems to always know exactly where to strike on each of us.
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  And that can feel overwhelming.
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  Wendi saw this recently in her Own daughter as she was preparing to graduate from high school.
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  I was talking, I have a daughter graduating.
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  I was talking to her last night.
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  I walked in to say goodnight, and I walked into her bawling and crying, and I thought, oh, no.
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  My mama heart went, oh, no.
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  So I sat down on the bed with her and I said, what's going on?
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  And she's like, nobody sees me.
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  Nobody cares about me.
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  I sat by myself tonight.
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  She went to a senior party, and she's like, they love my friends.
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  They see my friends.
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  They're fun.
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  They're the life of the party.
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  I sat alone.
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  No one paid attention to me.
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  When I went to leave, they didn't come up and say anything.
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  I mean, she felt isolated.
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  She felt like she was in a place where she didn't matter.
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  She didn't care.
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  She didn't feel seen, heard, or valued.
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  And as I sat there listening to her and just trying to hold space for her, pretty soon I started going, she's being attacked by Satan.
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  He's completely working on her to cause her to feel like she has no value.
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  And so what did I do?
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  I said, you know what?
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  Let's cast that out, because this isn't the normal you.
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  She's generally a very friendly, loving, kind, giving.
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  I opened up her yearbook that people had been signing.
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  Do you know what they said in the yearbook?
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  You are so kind.
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  You are so loving.
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  You're so beautiful inside and out.
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  And I'm like, trying to read those to her.
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  And of course she's like, but, mom, you know where?
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  She was shutting me down and I'M like, there's validation right here in this book, honey, that you're kind and loving and giving and that you people do appreciate you.
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  But she wasn't believing it.
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  And so I said, okay, let's get rid of Satan.
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  We need to focus on who you really are.
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  And you are a disciple of Jesus Christ and I know you love him.
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  So we cast out Satan.
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  We said, in the name of Jesus Christ.
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  I cast out.
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  And we named it for what it was.
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  We.
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  I cast out worthlessness.
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  I cast out not being seen and lonely and isolated.
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  We cast all that out.
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  We just said it in his name.
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  Christ's name.
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  Cast all that out.
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  And then I had her take some deep breaths and I said, okay, how are you feeling now?
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  And she said, much better and much lighter.
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  And I said, can you see how that's not who you really are, but that you really are a person who is seen and valued and loved?
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  And she went, yes.
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  And then we looked on her wall and on her wall she has God's name.
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  And then she has.
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  Each day she writes something beautiful that happens in her day of how she's, she feels seen.
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  And I said, let's look at some of those.
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  And she was able to look at those and go, oh yeah, I am seen and I am valued.
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  And that just brought a whole shift in her countenance.
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  So sometimes that's what we need to do is recognize the spiritual warfare.
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  We don't recognize it in the day to day stuff.
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  That shift in countenance happened because the off feeling wasn't her.
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  It was an attack from the adversary.
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  I also saw this in one of my children recently when they came to the dinner table completely overwhelmed by the amount of things that they still had to do before the day ended.
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  As I tried to suggest some easy ways to solve the problem, they just couldn't seem to move out of that stressful, I can't do it.
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  It's so overwhelming.
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  I realized they were also under a spiritual attack.
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  I pray with you.
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  And I did.
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  And as I prayed with them, I cast out the spirit of overwhelm in the prayer and invited the spirit of God to replace it in the name of Jesus Christ.
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  I also asked God to bless this child with the ability to see and discern what was the most important things for them to prioritize in the time they had left in the day.
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  And guess what?
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  Just a few hours later, they came over and said, hey mom, I got everything done.
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  And I thought, isn't that amazing how we can shift from an Attack where we feel like we can't do anything and we're powerless and we're so overwhelmed and anxious and to look at what I did and look at
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  what God helped me to do.
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  Because we cast out darkness and bring in light.
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  When we realize the battle isn't against our own personality, we can stop fighting ourselves and start relying on the Savior.
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  You learn to love yourself.
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  And I think sometimes as women, one of Satan's greatest attacks and his warfare that he uses against women is for us to feel not enough and that we aren't a good in mom, we're not a good enough mom,
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  we're not a good enough wife, a good enough daughter, good enough sister.
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  He attacks us.
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  So one of the things I think is important to also turn to the Lord to always see your worth and your value when you're facing Satan's spiritual warfare, because we are always enough through him.
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  But recognize when Satan's saying, you're not.
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  I saw a meme one day that said God said to love your enemies.
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  And so I loved me.
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  Oh, that's really sweet.
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  Yeah.
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  Because sometimes we make ourselves our greatest enemy and we shouldn't be.
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  So learn to love yourself and as you do, you'll show up in those spaces for other people.
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  Spiritual warfare, my friend, is the attempt of the adversary to make you forget who you truly are.
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  You are a daughter of God and as a mother, you are also the spiritual guardian of your home.
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  And you don't have to be perfect to win these battles.
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  Believe me, I've done a lot of stumbling in my life.
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  You just need to be partnered with someone powerful.
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  Someone like Jesus Christ.
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  Have you seen today?
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  Recognizing the weak points when the adversary is attacking is the first step to learning to fortify against these attacks.
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  To help you move from fear to a posture of power, we have a beautiful downloadable PDF we would like to give to you for free.
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  It is a mother's spiritual discernment guide.
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  Six steps to Empowering home and Family.
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  This is a strategic manual for helping you reclaim your household and it's available free at the link below.
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  In this guide, we dive deep into step number two, the Catalyst principle, showing you how your own internal light shifts the spiritual weather of your entire home.
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  We also walk you through step number five, wielding God's word, where we give you a three part formula to turn scriptural promises into tactical weapons for your family's specific needs.
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  It is awesome.
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  Be sure to check that out.
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  So, my friend, do not let the adversary isolate you.
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  You are a woman warrior of light.
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  And you are not alone in this battle.
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  Until next time.
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  May you arise, shine, and do it God's way.
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  God strong.
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  If today's episode helped you feel a little closer to God, please like and subscribe.
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  It helps us grow and ensures heaven's whispers stay at the top of your feed whenever you need them most.