Hi, I’m Shawn Bolz with Bolz Ministries and this is God Today. I want to encourage you. Some of you out there might have gone through a season of fear, or fearfulness, or maybe have even tormenting thoughts, or a cyclical thought pattern that you couldn’t get over. I was over in a new country and I was praying for these amazing people who were brand new to faith. Their daughter was going through tormenting dreams, night after night, after night. They did everything. They took her to a psychologist, they took her to a child specialist, who deals with even child art therapy. They did all kinds of stuff. They just couldn’t figure out how to break the cycle. She wasn’t someone who watched a lot of horror movies, and she wasn’t someone who had any trauma, you know PTSD trauma from her childhood. It was just random fear that came on her life from when she was a baby.
I remember looking at her and I just had this discernment in me. Fear is the opposite of belief. Fear is the opposite of faith. I looked at her and I said, “You know what? God has so much for you. You’re a strong woman, you’re a strong leader [this is a 12 year old], you’re a strong woman, you’re a strong leader. This is such a robber. This fear is such a robber. I’m going to pray. I believe that sometimes the enemy targets us with fearful thoughts. I believe sometimes when we get targeted we will believe those things in ways, or we will entertain those things in ways that we just don’t need to.
I want you, whenever fear comes on you, think of something that you love or something that you’re grateful for. Be the opposite. Let’s cancel with gratitude, let’s cancel the happy thoughts. Are you creative?” She’s like, “Yes.” “Start being creative. Sing a song. Do something creative. Turn on the lights and change the atmosphere for yourself. If you don’t shift the atmosphere on this thing, it’s not going to shift for you.”
So, we started to talk about this and I prayed for her. I broke anything demonic off of her in Jesus’ name. That kind of thing – all the traditional prayers a lot of Christians would pray. I went back a year later, I had kind of forgotten the whole story. This girl comes up to me and she is radically bold and fierce. Before when I saw her she was timid and quiet and little. Just like a little kid. This time she was like a woman and only 13 years old. And I’m sitting there going, “Who is this girl?” And she is like, “You prayed for me. Remember when you prayed for me?” And I said, “What did I pray for you for?” She goes, “Remember the fear thing?” And I go, “Oh my gosh! Totally! Well, what happened?” She goes, “Well, that night when you prayed for me I had the worst attack I have ever have, of fear. And I thought about what you said and I thought, “Jesus, you are greater in me, like Shawn said, than the enemy is to hurt me. Then I prayed that He would manifest me.” She goes, “That kinda worked. But, then I started to think, ‘I’m going to do something He has called me to do. What He’s made me for.’” She started to do art, and she started to sing, and she is writing a song, and she’s writing a story. She was doing all this stuff that she forgot about fear. It became so small in the midst of her, even though it was the middle of the night, it became so small in the midst of her going after something God put inside of her.
She started to look at the enemy and go, “You’re not going to rob my time anymore. If I am going to be awake I am going to do something productive with my awake hours.” She realized by leaning into God and saying, “God, I’m not going to give this any place. I am not entertaining fear anymore. I am actually going to occupy the space that fear tries to take up with something else.”
This fear thing was not only broken off of her life, but it changed forever. She prays for many other young kids who have tormenting dreams – night terrors, those kinds of things – and it is instantly broken off of them. Demonic oppression come off of them. She also tells them, “If it ever comes back on, occupy that space with something that God has called you to.”
I want to encourage you maybe some of you are watching right now and you are like, “I just can’t shake this fear thing. I get night terrors, I think somebody is going to break into my house every night, or I have monster dreams, or I have horror movie type dreams, or maybe I don’t like being alone because I feel anxiety.” I want to encourage you. Of course God can do beautiful identity work, but some of this is just oppression. Right now we cancel any oppression that is on your life. We pray that the Spirit of God would fill your house, fill your room. I pray that you would fuel the atmosphere with something else that this fear. Put on worship music, open the Bible, be creative. Do what God has called you todo. I am telling you . You will shift the atmosphere. You don’t have to wait for the enemy to go away, you are empowered to cast him out by doing something that God has put inside of you. If you are going to be up anyway, be up, and fill your life with God. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
Pull quote:
You don’t have to wait for the enemy to go away… cast him out by doing something that God has put inside of you.