spiritual warfare

spiritual warfare has always been a hard concept for me to get my mind around - probably because we live in america where for some reason God has kept it mostly in the unseen realm, whereas other parts of the world it's much more out in the open and in your face. but it still exists here...and we've been convinced of that fact more and more in the last few days. it comes in the form of awkward conversations, discouraging phone calls, very strange emails, and other bizarre stuff meant to distract us. it's kind of interesting...i've been noticing a pattern - every august, usually a couple weeks into it i really start to feel it. and it makes sense because that's right when we're preparing for a big retreat and the start of small groups, leadership teams, message series, and other things that God for some reason uses for good. the enemy doesn't want these things to get off the ground, and though there have been some discouraging and frustrating moments in the past few days, i'm trying to learn from them and leverage them to fuel the passion in our heart to challenge students to live lives that count for God. never a dull moment...