Summary

Have you ever found yourself completely exhausted, locked in a shouting match over something trivial, or sitting in stone-cold silence after a blow-up with your spouse? When you look at the chaotic behavior in your home, it is so easy to assume your family is just being difficult or that you are failing as a mother. But if you feel a crushing heaviness that seems bigger than a normal "bad day," you might be asking: What is spiritual warfare and why is it important? You need to understand the invisible infrastructure running underneath your family's daily exhaustion!

In this episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson and licensed clinical social worker Wendi Christensen uncover how the adversary specifically targets the vulnerabilities of your family. We look back at Genesis 3 to see how the enemy uses psychological isolation and distortion rather than physical weapons. Wendi explains the enemy's "fishing hook" tactic—how he exacerbates natural biological shifts or situational depression to reel you into worthlessness.

We also share raw, real-life examples of shifting the battle from fighting with your children to fighting for them. Learn how to pause a family argument, identify the spiritual interference, and change the temperature of your home in the name of Jesus Christ. Tune in to move from managing behavioral crises to dominating the spiritual atmosphere of your home today!

Episode Takeaways

• Not Flesh and Blood: We often treat our battles as purely physical. But as 2 Corinthians 10 tells us, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Spiritual warfare is a subtle manipulation of your thoughts, health, and relationships to make you forget who you are.
• The "Hook" Tactic: The enemy will attack you wherever you are naturally vulnerable—whether that is hormone shifts, chronic pain, or situational grief. He casts a "hook" (like the thought, "I didn't do a good enough job today") and slowly reels you into a net of worthlessness.
• Fight FOR Them, Not WITH Them: When your children or spouse are acting out, they are not the enemy; Satan is. You can change the temperature of your home by pausing a shouting match and explicitly saying, "Satan is working on all of us right now. Let's invite the Lord in."
• Teach Your Kids to Fight: We must teach our children how to vocally command the adversary to leave in the name of Jesus Christ, and how to explicitly call down angels from Heaven for backup when they are tempted or overwhelmed.

Free Resource

Ready to stop fighting your family and start fighting the real enemy? Get our free A Mother's Spiritual Defense Guide: 6 Empowering Steps to Fortify Home & Family downloadable PDF here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/A-Mothers-Spiritual-Defense-Guide

Reflection Questions

• Look back at a recent argument or "blow-up" in your home. Was there a natural vulnerability (like exhaustion or hormone shifts) that the adversary used as a "hook" to make the situation worse?
• How does your perspective change when you view your struggling child or spouse as the victim of an attack rather than the cause of the problem?
• Have you ever stopped in the middle of a chaotic moment to vocally identify the spiritual interference and invite the Lord in?

Host & Guest

Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson

Wendi Christensen @wendichristensencounseling

Transcript

https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/blog/what-is-spiritual-warfare-and-why-is-it-important

Have you ever found yourself completely exhausted? Locked in a shouting match with your kids over something totally trivial, or sitting in heavy stone cold silence after a blow up with a spouse?

You look at the chaotic behavior all around you and your default is just to assume that your family members are simply being difficult or that you are failing as a wife and a mother. But deep down you feel the crushing heaviness that feels much bigger than a normal bad day.

Perhaps you're searching for what is spiritual warfare and why is it important? Because you need to understand the invisible infrastructure running underneath your family's daily exhaustion.

Well, my friend, you are in the right place.

We're going to cover this today and by the end of today's episode, you'll be able to pinpoint exactly where the adversary is casting his hooks into your daily family routine. You will understand why treating your battles as purely physical is keeping your home in a state of constant fatigue.

We're going to help you solve the pain of behavioral burnout by showing you how to shift your focus from fighting your children's behavior to dismantling the spiritual interference trying to rip your family apart. That's where the true adversary lies. We're moving from managing behavioral crises to dominating the spiritual atmosphere of your home. Stay tuned.

Ordinary Women Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.

I'm your host, Tamara K. Andersen, and I'm so thrilled to have my co founder of Women warriors of Light, Wendy Christensen, joining me today as we tackle this perplexing question of what is spiritual warfare and why is it so important? She's got some amazing insights because she's been a licensed clinical social worker for over 30 years.

So today we're going to kick it off by talking about what God specifically warns us about when dealing with the mechanics of the adversary. In Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verses 3 and 4, the apostle Paul kind of lays down the boundary.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty. Through God to the pulling down of strongholds. This is a spiritual battle with God.

We can pull down the enemy's strongholds. Now let's go back to Genesis chapter three, where we notice the very first spiritual battle on earth, the deception of Eve.

There you will notice something profound. Satan didn't show up with physical weapons or outward force.

He used psychological isolation, confusion and distortion by asking, did God really say you should eat of all the trees? Spiritual warfare is Subtle. It's manipulation of your thoughts, your health, your relationships to make you forget who you are.

And so we need God's spirit with us so much more to help us discern when the adversary is attacking. In fact, we can pray and ask God, help me to discern this, because I need your help. Satan is so sneaky. I can't do this alone.

Wendy is now going to share with you how from a clinical standpoint, the enemy is always looking for the easiest way to get in.

Spiritual warfare can take on spiritual aspects, but also many physical aspects. Satan, he will take us wherever we're vulnerable, and he doesn't care where it's at. He will hit hard.

Sometimes that can even be just normal, like biological vulnerabilities, like maybe your hormone shifts. Women go through that every month. And he'll attack us wherever we're vulnerable.

If we have back problems, headaches, knee pains, I see a lot, you know, feet that we think are just normal everyday life things. So whatever those physical vulnerabilities are, he will exacerbate them and he will attack them and he will make them worse.

So even if I have some anxiety, some depression, that can just be a normal part of life.

If we go through an experience, for example, as therapists, we'll call it situational depression, where maybe we're going through a divorce or we're going through a grieving moment, somebody's passed away, that will bring natural, normal feelings of grief and sadness and loss. That's just a human part of us, right, where we just exist.

But then what happens often is Satan will come in and he'll kind of weasel his way, way in and he'll make it worse. People will be like, well, how do I discern the difference when it's beyond that?

And I would say that when it becomes something that's very heavy and weighing down and you just don't feel like yourself, that's often when Satan comes in and he starts attacking us and he feeds us with all these spiritual lies. I kind of look at it as he's like, fishing with a hook and try to hook us. Could be a thought of, I don't think I did a good enough job today.

And then we'll start reeling, right? Like, think, I didn't accomplish anything today. And then I start feeling these cords wrap around me. You really didn't do what you're supposed to do.

Your checklist today you got one thing done, and you had 10 things on that list today. You're pretty worthless. And then as I start feeling it way down even more. It's like an anchor.

So then I start actually believing I totally am a worthless person. I can't do anything, I don't accomplish anything. And by then he's got you, right? And then he could just takes his net and scoops you up.

When you understand that hook tactic, it changes how you mother.

As a mom, I had to coach my teenagers through some pretty massive difficulty when dealing with deep trials like pornography addiction or navigating seasons where the enemy was amplifying anxiety and depression in my kids. At that point, I realized that my children were not the enemy. I sat them down and directly taught them, you are a child of God.

You are not the problem here. Satan is. And I'm not going to fight with you. I'm going to fight for you. You are worth fighting for.

I then taught them to cast out the adversary in the name of Jesus Christ and explicitly call down angels from heaven for backup. I still remember one of my teens coming to me with a sweet story, sharing how he had been tempted very intensely.

One evening, he vocally commanded the adversary to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. And because the temptation still prevailed, he asked an ancestor angel to come be with him and help strengthen him to break the temptation.

And it worked. It was a beautiful real world victory.

If we don't teach our children how to do this, we end up spending a lot of our maternal stamina fighting the outward behavior because of an enemy's attack.

Wendy is now going to share a vulnerable example of catching herself in this exact trap during a family argument and how she was able to shift the environment of her home by identifying the invisible interference in instead, rather than identifying,.

Hey, there might be some spiritual interference going on here. And Satan, I think, is really working on me right now, working on my family. I've been in a yelling match with my kids before.

Not that I want to be, but I have where we're like, maybe my. My two boys are fighting. And I might come in and I'm like, what's going on here?

And I start in the yelling match, but I've suddenly went, ah, Satan's in here and he's working on everybody. And I'll take a deep breath and I'll center and I'll ground myself. And I'll be like, hey, Satan's working on all of us.

Let's just all pause for a minute. Let's all take a deep breath. Let's invite the Lord in. How can we switch where we're at? What do we need to do?

And all of a sudden, everything switches in our environment. And my kids recognize, oh, yeah, I need to calm down too. Let me take my breath, let me do.

We do forgiveness steps in my home because that's something I teach a lot. So we'll start practicing those, and I might split them up and say, go off and let's do some forgiving, Ask the Lord, invite him in.

We all take a deep breath, and then we all recenter and refocus and we really find what's going on rather than focusing on the dumb argument.

Or maybe if it's a disagreement with my husband and we start arguing over something, maybe dumb, but maybe it's something significant, but then it blows out of proportion and we don't talk to each other. I need to recognize Satan's probably tearing us apart. How can I humble myself? How can I turn to the Lord?

How can I use the tools that I have so that I can take a deep breath and go in and say, you know what? I think Satan's working on both of us. How can we bring the Lord into our disagreement and our conflict? And it can change everything quickly.

So, my friends, this is so vital for us to grasp because when you stop treating your home's problems as purely physical, you unlock a completely different level of spiritual authority. Wendy is now going to share how this pivot literally alters the temperature and gauge of your home.

If you start recognizing the things in your life as an attack, like it changes everything, you start refocusing everything. It can help with heaviness, it can help with negative emotions, deep discouragement, division that's going on in your home.

Sometimes it can even help with my back is killing me. And it has to do with Satan coming in and attacking and causing me to feel off kilter so that I can't be the person that I need to be the wife.

I need to be the mom that I need to be right now.

And when I center and focus and get rid of maybe some of those negative tools or those attacks that are coming, I can then show up as my real, true self. And that could just change the whole temperature of your home.

So, my friends, spiritual warfare is so important because if you don't realize you have an enemy, you will spend your entire time fighting your husband and your children and even your own own mind. But when you reframe the battle, you stop being a casualty and start acting as a guardian.

You have the right to call down armies of light to clear your living room and your home, to help you move from feeling targeted to feeling fully equipped. I want to give you our Mother's Spiritual Defense Guide six Empowering Steps to Fortify Home and Family.

It's available to you completely free at the link below.

When you get your copy, flip to Step Number three Mastering Discernment we have laid out the counselor's question that Wende uses with her clients that will help you instantly diagnose when a child is acting out from normal stress versus when they're under a spiritual attack.

Then use the exact prayer template in step Number four to vocally cast out the worthlessness, the anxiety and the rage in the name of Jesus Christ and fill that void with the peace formulas listed on page number seven. You, my friend, are a warrior of light and you and your family are worth the fight.

Do not doubt your value as a daughter of God and the capacity you have to stand shoulder to shoulder with angels and with God as your general. As you fight and protect yourself and your home, may you do so with faith and until next time, may you arise. Do it God's way, God's strong.