The Road to Damascus

Joshua’s face was streaked with tears. He had been in anguish ever since the burden was set on his heart to pray for the innocents. He didn’t know who they were, or what the circumstances of their lives were, he just knew that his prayers were vitally important.
Suddenly a vicious and violent picture flashed across his mind. He drew back in shock from the thought in his own mind.
He was stunned. Yet he couldn’t shake the picture from his consciousness. It grew worse and more vulgar. He was disgusted and pulled his concentration back to his prayers.
He prayed earnestly. Again the violence crowded out his prayers.
“What is going on, Lord?” He demanded in fear.
Suddenly he felt incredibly cold; it was as if all heat drained out of him through the floor.
All of the color left as well. Everything became shade of grey and black. Like death.
He began to shake. His breathing became very shallow and his heart began beating wildly. He felt a heavy weight of darkness push down upon him. His thoughts careened wildly from the past to the present, from the future to fantasy to violence to filth to death.
He felt like he was spinning. All sense of direction was gone.
Then it stopped…
He was perfectly calm; his breathing, normal; his heartbeat, normal; his composure, normal.
He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to do.
And then it came to him; this was what Paul was talking about in Ephesians with his encouragement;
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your
stand against the devil’s schemes. For your struggle
is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark
world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day
of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground,
and after you have done everything, to stand.
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around you waist,
with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet
fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which
to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God. And pray in the spirit on all
occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for the saints.
It dawned on him that he had been attacked for his prayers. Attacked by the spiritual forces of evil that Paul wrote about.
The attack had been awesome in its speed and intensity. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He had been drawn away from praying at other times, but always by becoming distracted, which was one of Satan’s favorite tools. Joshua knew that and worked hard to focus his prayers. Apparently a more vicious attack was needed to shake him from his prayer.
And vicious it was. He had no idea of the strength of spiritual power and the effects of it. He knew that there was no possible way he could have physically withstood such an attack for very long. It was as if his soul was being wrenched out of his body. And he had no defenses—no physical defenses. He knew that it was his spiritual armor, and God himself acting through it that had repelled the attack.
“What have I gotten myself into?” he asked aloud. “I always used to think that the battles were out there.” He swung his arm vaguely toward the rest of the world. “But here I am all alone in a cold, stinking cell in the middle of who knows where. And this… this turns out to be a battle zone.
He was wrong about that. Before it was all over, he would wish that it was only a battle.
He was seeing the beginning of…a war.