God is very patient and kind. I think almost everything I do in following Jesus now is quite different than what I was really convinced about at one point in my life.

Here’s my experience over the decades learning how to deal with demons bothering Christians….

I first found out we could do something about demons in the 90’s. I was so thankful for Neil T. Anderson’s “The Bondage Breaker”. It was kind of a shotgun approach, where you name every possible evil thing that could have happened to someone and see it anything stood out.

It was thorough and effective, but I had a few problems with it in my personal experience:

1. It would take me several hours to go through everything
2. I exposed people to a lot of evil that they didn’t even know existed before
3. When we did uncover the issue, we would get stuck there for a couple of hours until we could get it out, and the book wasn’t much help in the real battle
4. There seemed to be a lack of authority, like one time I had a guy growling at me with a contorted face and threatening me

Then my pastor learned from someone that you can talk to the demons, like Jesus did in the story with the pigs. So we started doing that, commanding the demon in Jesus name to tell us who they were and what they were doing so we could cast them out.

This handled a bunch of the above: (1) way faster, like an hour, (2) we got right to the point, (3) we could get it out much easier and (4) I didn’t see any more manifestations.

The problem was, well, quite obviously in hindsight, we spent a lot of time talking with demons. Not terribly uplifting. They’re always lying and hiding and blaming other demons and we’re always commanding them to tell the truth in Jesus’ name. Effective but tiresome.

Then my pastor heard we can use the same method, but just listen to the Holy Spirit. This is what I did for a couple of decades. I’ll ask questions about the situation, and the person listens for what God tells them, and someone else prays and takes notes. It usually takes 15 to 45 minutes.

This has the advantage of teaching people that they can hear God’s voice, as most are amazed at what comes to mind as they listen, and how profoundly it lines up with other things they hadn’t previously realized.

In the last few years I find myself in contexts where we don’t say “demon” out loud. Maybe “the demonic” or “oppressed”. So I’m discovering another way that’s more subtle. We just pray together and tell the anger to be gone in Jesus name, or something like that. This can take less than a minute.

Like most things in being a disciple of Jesus, as the amount of structure goes down, the amount of faith needs to go up. But what I’m finding that’s less obvious is that the love that God has for these people is somehow inside of me, and when the structures are gone, it really pours out. And it’s his love that’s powerful. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s quite different from those early days. Lots and lots of love when I pray for people. And it’s coming from God inside of me. Bubbling up unexpectedly. Making methods less relevant. Making “doing it right” not a concern.

As I get older I keep telling Heather “shoot, I wish I would have known this before” and she always responds with, “just be grateful you know it now”. I know there’s an even better experience coming. God is always more wonderful than we know.

I feel very loved when he supports me in all my half-baked endeavours. He’s a loving Father, enjoying his kid (me) in whatever I’m up to. Thanks be to God.