Kingdom Crossfire

It seems I’ve spent half my life caught in the crossfire between the principalities and powers of the air thinking I was fighting battles with flesh and blood. I gave my heart to Jesus at the tender age of nine. Naïve to what it meant for my earthly future, on the spiritual level a child can understand, I knew it was the right choice… the only choice for me.

I’ve had some amazing experiences in my life; God is responsible for these. Just this week, I’ve found He is at it again… bringing parts of my childhood and adolescent years around to meet up with my adult self and allowing me the great privilege of tracing His Hand from hell to high places… urging me toward completing the healing process in wounds almost three decades old.

As school starts back, may I remind you… parents and grandparents, classroom teachers and Sunday school teachers… coaches: The children in your care who have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ are gigantic neon flashing targets for spiritual warfare. They probably won’t know what it is. They may not understand why they’re suddenly being treated differently by people who used to be their friends. How do I know? Because I was one of them, and just this week, a full twenty-six years later, as a full-blown mature adult, God cleared the blur and brought the full picture into view.

You can’t fight the enemy until you know who the enemy is. You can’t fight the enemy unless you have the right tools for the battle. You can’t get out of the crossfire until you know for sure which side you’re committed to. This is hard enough for adults. In today’s world, I cannot begin to imagine navigating as a child. They need our help to understand that things WILL change after making a profession of faith. They need help to understand that the Devil of the Bible is real in the world and wants to convince them that they’ve made the wrong choice.  We can't possibly expect them to identify what we often miss ourselves.  We must help them work through these attacks and guide them in developing the tools for the fight.  I believe this is the high calling of working with children and youth. I pray God grants us all the wisdom, discernment, and sensitivity necessary for the job.

                                                                      Guest blogger this week:  Karissa Petty