The nightmare and the warrior: step 3 – punch!

This is the conclusion of a short series of posts. If you’ve been following along, we’re at step 3 now, which is my favorite part of the lessons learned!

I had the opportunity to hear Lisa Bevere last summer, what a mighty woman of God! As she shared from her book Fight Like A Girl, she held up a charmed bracelet, designed to be a daily remembrance of the lessons in the book. The charm I like most is the boxing glove – to remind us to “strike when the enemy draws near”.

STEP 1: prepare – prepare for battle by putting your armor on!

STEP 2: position – position yourself for the greatest advantage over the enemy!

STEP 3: PUNCH!

Friend, when the enemy draws near you, you’ve got to ball up your fist, and PUNCH – HIM – OUT!!

As I shared in a previous post, my victory over nightmares didn’t come instantaneously. But what happened over a fairly short period of time, was that my human spirit – (the part of me that got reborn when I accepted Jesus as Savior) – well, grew a spiritual backbone! Yea baby. Uh huh!

With the increasing understanding of who I was in Christ, came a new and bold attitude and I determined in my heart that if the enemy was going to bother me with a nightmare – I was going to bother him right back! So the next time I had a nightmare (once I was able to wake up from it), I swung my legs off the bed and began walking around my bedroom, commanding devils in the Name of Jesus to get out of my house, and off my property! [punch!]

Then I called out for God’s hulk-iest “big @$$” angels to come stand in military position around my house (“back to wall”), so that no power or principality that was acting in contrast to the Word of God could enter back in! [punch!]

And I cranked up the worship music!! Not the sleepy-time stuff, but the loud, full-on worship!! I wanted to make sure the enemy knew that I knew who’s house this was! [punch!]
I am a daughter of the Living God! And having made my dwelling place in Jesus Christ, I dwell in the shadow of the Almighty!! If he wanted a fight, he was going to get one, and I wasn’t the one he was going to be fighting with!! Are you getting the picture? [TKO!]

Finally, once I was confident that the enemy was black and blue, humiliated, cast out, and cut off … I went back to bed, and went back to sleep.

Within a few weeks, I noticed I was waking up quicker into the dreams, their power over me weakening with every encounter. When I did have a dream, I’d go through the process of making my enemy pay for disturbing me, and then go straight back to sleep again. The dreams got shorter and shorter, and less frequent.

That’s not to say that I don’t still have the occasional dream, I do. But they are few and far between, and nothing like they used to be. It’s as if the Holy Spirit that lives within me sends an alarm to my human spirit, which then tells my body to wake and call on Jesus’ Name for rescue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken just enough to mumble “Je-sus” in a sleep-slurred voice, maybe raise a sloppy arm towards heaven while doing it, and them promptly roll over and go right back to a night of peaceful sleeping. Usually, that’s enough to do it – but if not, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m still firmly committed to making my enemy pay, and pay BIG, for daring to mess with this daughter of God! I know who I am, and I know whose I am! I sound that Heavenly Alarm, and worship my Savior while the armies of Heaven swoop in and kick the crap out of him!

If you are experiencing nightmares or panic attacks, I pray that my simple story will give you encouragement. Through Christ, you can experience victory over your enemy, making nightmares, PTSD and panic attacks part of your past, not your present! Implement these steps. Get plugged into a life-giving church. Pursue God and pursue His promises for the better days that He has planned out for you. He is faithful, and He will get you through this!

In Him,
Jenny