TheoErotic

What started as a nice, calm trip into the mountains (with a great stop at Dorothy’s for hot tamales) and a great first meeting on the thursday night quickly turned into a nightmare.

I don’t know why it surprised me. I should have been more than ready for this to be a battle of epic proportions. It all started Friday morning when John was talking about inviting Jesus into the young parts of our hearts. I knew that this was the reason I had come to Bootcamp, I needed deep healing. I closed my eyes and ran headfirst into a brick wall. There was nothing there, no Jesus, no woundedness, no feelings and no connection at all to God or to my heart. I was numb.

Then the battle started, it started slowly with “You don’t really belong here among all these americans, they don’t understand what it is like to be a Christian in Europe and especially not in Sweden”. To top that sneaky attack came an assault on my capacity to pray. Every time i shut my eyes I saw nightmare images, battle scenes, bombs exploding, snakes, eyes, demonic grins, more snakes, dancing pigs etc. Chaos and frightening images made it impossible to pray.

This continued all of Friday with a brief respite during the afternoon when I went fly fishing, when, I concentrated on trying to cast properly and not so much on prayer.

Saturday morning 04:00 I wakeup in the dark assaulted by agreements, “This is not for you”, “Johns teaching is to conservative”, “There is no such thing as warfare and spiritual attacks” (YEA RIGHT!), “You are not good enough to deserve to hear from Jesus”, “There is no Jesus”, “God doesn’t exist”, “It was a waste of time and money to go here” and so on ad nauseum. I break each one of these in turn as they come to me, it goes on for two hours non stop. I drift into uneasy sleep until 07:00 when I get up, tired, to face the day.

Prayer block still there, I am irritated and have trouble taking anything in during sessions. I am disappointed that Bart can’t find the time to talk to me but I engage the intercessor team to get this of my back. Evening comes and the status quo remains.

Then a band of brothers intervene! They grab me and drag me into an empty lodge and start battling for my heart. These brothers listened well, prayed well, and battled well.

David looks me into the eyes and says, “You are very hard on yourself aren’t you?” I shrug, maybe, I say. “You look at yourself and see a wounded broken boy who keeps tripping up and failing”. David continues, “I see a warrior who has been through, fiercely intense battles and who is still fighting”, the tears well up inside, I want that to be true, but I do not believe it. “What is Jesus saying”, they ask. Exasperated I say but I can’t pray all I see is nightmarish garbage. “Well, if you can’t see, what do you hear then?” I listen…

“Faithful Warrior”

Tears well up, the dam is broken, and the connection is restored, my warrior heart recovered. I thank God for my brothers in this battle without whom I’d be lost, I realise as so many other times that I am not meant to go this alone. I have Jesus and I have my brothers in arms.