Both of them professed to be born-again Christians. The husband went on to describe that virtually every night he would be awakened by his wife’s screaming. She would usually be standing beside the bed screaming and trembling…

He could calm her down by praying. At that point, she would be able to go back to sleep. In general, this type of incident would occur two or three times throughout the night.

The woman spoke with an accent that was new to me. When Bob questioned her, she told him that she was originally from Uganda.

As Bob began to pray, I recognized the format of the prayer he was using. It followed the pattern of one he had included in his book. This was a prayer designed to force demonic spirits to manifest.

And manifest they did.

The woman gave out a loud, blood curdling shriek. She began moving away from Bob with a look of absolute terror on her face until her husband grabbed her and held her in place.

The woman’s face began to contort in grotesque fashion. Her once brown eyes took on a bright yellow glow. This was not the same person we had seen only moments before.

Looking around the room, almost everyone’s eyes were as big as silver dollars. It was obvious most of those present had never seen evil manifest in this fashion. Over half the audience hightailed it out of there.

Over the next several minutes, I watched, spellbound, as Bob would speak the Word of God to this spirit.

In the course of this confrontation, Bob bound the demonic spirit and began to speak quietly with the woman. She recalled that, as a small child in Uganda, her parents had forced her to participate in an occult ceremony and had consecrated her to the evil spirits that they worshipped.

With this knowledge, Bob was able to lead the woman in a prayer of renunciation and then expel the demonic spirits (three of them) from her.

I was watching the Bible literally come to life and jump off the pages.

It was incredible to witness the power of the Word of God as it forced the demonic spirits into total submission and then expelled them from this woman.

The spiritual realm had just undergone a transformation from theory to vivid reality before my eyes.

My wife accompanied me to the second night of Bob’s seminar. On this occasion, there were no manifestations. Bob also announced that he had received a phone call from the Ugandan woman expressing gratitude and telling him that she had experienced her first night of uninterrupted sleep in months.

At the conclusion of the service, we joined with one of Bob’s team in prayer. He identified himself as Louis, a pastor from Ohio.

My wife told him that she had felt as though her prayers were being “blocked.” Louis led us in a prayer and then suggested that I pray over her daily until this force was completely removed.

The following morning, as I was driving along, minding my own business, an image formed in my mind.

There before me was a wall containing a double window. As I watched, the window slowly swung open and then shut. The whole thing lasted just a few seconds.

Through this window I saw a rolling green meadow with a green covered hill in the distance. The intensity of the colors was spectacular, with a richness and depth beyond my ability to describe.

In that same instant, I received an impression of unseen things that totally overwhelmed me. People – everywhere. Smiling and busy. Preparations were underway.

And the POWER. The sense of power was unbelievable. Hidden from view, yet felt through every fiber of my being. Far above and beyond anything imaginable.

It took me several days to fully digest all that I had seen and felt.

Finally, and ever so slowly, it began to dawn on me – I had been given a minuscule glimpse of heaven.

The incredible events of this week raised almost as many questions as they answered. Study, meditation, contemplation and prayer produced many answers. But still one question remained unanswered. Why?

Somewhere along the way, I had gone from merely wanting to know more about God to, as the Bible puts it, “searching with all your heart.” I wasn’t for sure when this change had happened, but now I was committed.

And God had more than responded. John Eldredge talks about the ancient Celtic Christians and their definition of chasing after God’s Spirit as being akin to chasing the wild goose. No one knows where it may lead.

And I especially like the response that Mr. Beaver gives in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe when he was asked if it was a safe thing to follow after Aslan, “ Safe??? Oh my, no! It’s never safe – but it’s good.”

In other words, it’s a good thing – but it’s definitely a dangerous thing. And I was about to find that out firsthand.

That time was a strange mixture, to put it mildly.

On almost a daily basis I would arise with a new resolve to take the time to get to know my God better. And something would come up that would keep me from it…

I did manage to read several books on spiritual warfare, demons and deliverance. And I did increase my reading of the Bible. I had put off reading A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God for some time. In his review, John Eldredge had called the book “life-changing.”

Finally, I read the book. And things really began to change as I put into practice what Tozer said was necessary to draw close to God.

Our finances had begun to suffer with me out of work and I asked God for a “small” miracle to get us through. That same day my wife was offered a job with a huge sign-on bonus.

We discussed the particulars of the job offer and after meeting with the people involved decided she should accept the job. We didn’t realize it at the time, but God had just prepared her a table in the presence of her enemies.

It wasn’t long after she began the new job that she told me she felt as though she was under a spiritual attack at work. I began praying in the context of spiritual warfare for her and she started to notice some relief from the attacks.

But the relief was only temporary.

She called one morning to tell me that she had seen shadowy forms in her office and had a strong sense of an evil presence along with it. My first thought was to prepare her a prayer that she could use daily against this intruder.

As I prepared the prayer, my computer would behave strangely – wrong letters would appear on the screen, the screen would jump and the cursor would just disappear. And then the printer locked up. I knew then and there that I was on to something.

I managed to finish the prayer and saved it to a disk. I decided I would take it to her at work and print it out on her printer.

As I left the house, the temperature gauge on the car acted up. Driving to her work, I offered a prayer along these lines – Lord, I’m not sure what’s going on, but if this is the work of the enemy, I would really appreciate Your help.

The gauge started working instantly.

After this incident, I started joining her several times a week for lunch. We weren’t really sure of the implications of all that was happening at that point. Sometime later, it was revealed to us, at least in part, some of what was taking place.

My wife is blessed with a strong personality. In this case, it became a good news-bad news scenario. She began to fight on her own. In so doing, she had unknowingly given the enemy the right to attack her directly. She had removed herself from my spiritual covering and as a result, our prayers were not as effective as they should have been.

It was a harsh lesson.

Several weeks later I was returning home from one of our lunches. I had an overwhelming urge to stop at the Christian book store and buy a book on spiritual warfare.

I went into the store not really knowing what to get. As I looked over the selection, I was led to a book by Bob Larson.

I took the book home and read it over the space of a couple of days. Then I did an internet search and discovered his website. To my surprise, he had a conference scheduled at a hotel about five miles away in three weeks. Naturally, I had to go.

Just prior to this conference, I was awakened one night by a strange dream. A nightmare, actually. The dream itself consisted of an image of a huge, multi-headed serpent. Nothing else – just this huge serpent. Yet it woke me – leaving me covered in a cold sweat.

Curious to know what this meant, I did an internet search on spiritual dreams and their interpretation. And I sure didn’t like what I found.

Several sites offered essentially the same explanation. The dream was most likely a warning of an impending attack. Definitely not good news.

The following night, I experienced yet another dream. And this one was just as vividly emblazoned in my mind, as if to make a point.

In this second dream, I was dressed in full battle armor, clutching a blazing sword. There were flames blazing forth from my chest.

This led to another frantic internet search. To no avail. I couldn’t find anything to explain this dream. Then I took a clue from John Eldredge and asked the Lord to reveal the meaning of this dream.

And He did. The image was me, after the attack that I had envisioned. Still standing.

Talk about a sense of relief. Just knowing that I would still be standing was pretty incredible. And it spurred me to even more Bible study and reading about spiritual warfare. Through it all, I was awe-struck at the messages I had received.

The night of Bob Larson’s conference finally arrived and naturally I was there. I really wasn’t sure what to expect.

Things began pretty much as a normal church service. Bob delivered a message, songs were sung and an offering taken. At that point my opinion was that Bob Larson was a bit of a showman but his message and teaching seemed sound.

As the meeting drew to a close, Bob offered an invitation to anyone who felt a need for specific prayer to stick around and he and his team would minister with them.

I decided to stick around. Just to see what may take place.

To say I was NOT prepared for what happened next would be an understatement.

Nothing. No sign of anything out of place. Maybe it was the cat. No, the cat had been in the living room with us. Oh well….

We were living in Richmond, Indiana at the time. The owner of one of the local car dealerships had brought us there from the main store in Kentucky. But things hadn’t gone too well.

In spite of breaking an eighteen year store record, we had left the store and were making the eighty mile (one-way) commute to Indianapolis.

We had accepted the job in Indianapolis with great expectations. The general manager had given us a generous offer and pledged complete support for our program. Little did we know what we had stepped into.

A few months after making the job switch, we located a rental in the Indianapolis area and relocated. About this same time, we both had an unusual stirring in that we were anxious to find a church home.

Before we had married, both of us had been baptized and had begun to live in our Christian faith. Over time, coupled with each of us going through a divorce, we had been less than steadfast in our commitment to our new faith.

Yet that hunger had always been there. We just hadn’t talked about it too much. Then, one night, we tuned into a religious broadcast – the 700 Club. And that inspired us to begin our search for a church home.

During this time, we seemed to be constantly encountering strange problems and resistance to our work. It seemed like there was a constant cloud over work, a darkness and heaviness that you could actually feel.

Our co-workers were openly opposed to our success and were constantly trying to undermine our progress.

It was about this time that my wife began to tell me of some of the strange occurrences that took place while we lived in Richmond. The falling box that didn’t fall was only one of several instances.

On one occasion, she heard me coming down the stairs. She came over to the stairway only to find it empty. I was in the shower.

Then there was the night that she was awakened by a scratching sound on her pillow. Thinking it to be the cat, she was surprised to find him peacefully asleep at the foot of the bed.

There was also an incident in which she heard someone shouting her name from downstairs while we were sleeping and an instance when a shadowy figure appeared in our bedroom one night.

After she had told me of these strange goings on, we talked about it a little and admitted that neither of us had a clue. We just chalked it up to “strange things that happen.” It would be another year and a half before we found out what really went on.

Things at work were continuing in pretty much the same fashion as always. There were occasional periods where I would enjoy some free time.

During one of those periods, I stumbled across an introductory chapter of a book on the internet. With nothing else to do, I started reading. And I was hooked.

I left the store and proceeded to a nearby Christian bookstore to purchase a copy of Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. That led to reading his Waking the Dead, and there was no turning back.

Eldredge introduced me to something I had only vaguely heard about……Spiritual Warfare. And I began to study this fascinating subject.

Evil spirits, demons and devils. I had heard of these things sometime long ago. Most of us have. But here was a man who insisted that they actually existed.

Not only that, he made some rather startling statements about how they influence us and our daily lives. And the most amazing statement I had ever come across……As Christians, we have authority over them. Wow!

He also had some strong warnings. Don’t start anything unless you’re prepared. Study your Bible and get grounded in the truths you need for this war. If you’re not prepared, you’ll get taken out in a heartbeat.

With the sense of darkness at work, it wasn’t long before I just had to start applying what I had learned. Just to see.
As we went into work, my wife and I would start praying. And then we would use this newly-found authority against the spirits we thought might be causing the heaviness.

And it worked. Initially, we had great success. The heaviness over the dealership would disappear almost instantly. And then we started to notice something that had initially escaped our attention.

A surprising number of our customers were other Christians. We began to realize that maybe we weren’t there only to sell cars, but perhaps to minister to God’s children.

Then the battle heated up. The spirits of heaviness and resentment returned. And they were stronger than before. Constant, relentless. Our prayers weren’t nearly as effective as before.

It was some time later that I began to realize just what was going on. It was a “good news – bad news” situation. The good news was that we had succeeded in driving off some pretty nasty stuff. The bad news was that they came back – and brought their big brother.

And then, I was fired. Which wasn’t really too surprising to me considering the atmosphere of that place.

Cut-backs, I was told. Eliminating your job.