April 10, 2020

So, the stats aren’t great, are they? If the U.S. follows the pattern of China, when all of this is over (if ever this is over), we may watch people make a beeline for divorce lawyers’ offices. (Truly, they already are.)

People are joking about it, but the struggle is real:

Marriage is hard and, in this pandemic, it can be even more challenging.

You feeling it?

We are. Put two people in one house with tiny (or half-grown) humans, financial stress, and health fears, and small marriage issues can become gigantic. Maybe they won’t walk us to divorce, but they could isolate us in the midst of isolation.

(That has been our enemy’s plan from the beginning.)

By God’s mercy, we sensed this could happen to us, which is why on day two of the pandemic insanity we started fighting to grab each other’s hand as the waves of fear, despair, disunity, and avoidance crashed over us.

Let’s look at each of those four, intangible waves: fear, despair, disunity, and avoidance.

Because, friends? They are what we are truly fighting here. Yes, health scares and financial ruin are real, but we can’t really do much about them besides plan, pray, and, well, keep on sheltering-in-place.

But this intangible, spiritual stuff? These invisible waves? We can do something about them. And we need to do something about them before they wipe us into the open sea of pandemic flailing.

If we do—if we fight the right enemy together—this battling side-by-side is not only not going to add into divorce statistics and Buzzfeed jokes, it’s going to foster unity like we’ve never experienced before.

 

1. The Fear Wave

 

Everyone has a moment or three with this pandemic got real for them, but for us it was when we saw we couldn’t meet in groups of 50 or more. As a speaker dependent on large audiences to spread the gospel and generate income for the ministry and our family, I watched planned-on finances freeze in an instant.

My chest tightened, and I felt myself start to freak out.

I have learned over the years what is best for me to do in this moment: Take stock of how I feel, and then filter those emotions through prayer. God, I am scared. But what can I grip right now to orient my emotions onto truth?

Emotions are trustworthy tellers of how we feel, but they are not usually trustworthy tellers of what is true.

I needed true truth.

I invited Matt to ask Jesus for true truth with me. “Matt? I can’t get a grip. Will you pray with me for a word, a song, or a picture on how we should approach this next season?”

We paused and listened—filtering what we were hearing in that still, small voice of our hearts through the Word.

“Joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength,” we heard. Ugh. Joy is not my default, but because it isn’t, it told me that what we were hearing wasn’t from my own desires. God’s voice may have the same tone in our heart as our own, but I know it’s not my voice when it pulls me a step ahead of what I would automatically choose.

God’s voice is also always in line with the Bible.

Both things were in place: A step ahead and in line with Scripture. We took it to mean it was from Him.

Okay, God. Joy. How do I know how to seek true joy? Well, I have been learning about it. The link to joy is gratitude. Pray continuously. Give thanks in all circumstances. Be joyful always. Pray. Give thanks. Choose joy.

We began with gratitude. “God, thank you for the pretty sunshine. Father, thank you for this roll of toilet paper.” We invited our kids into the gratitude game: “Jesus, thank you for chalk, for pizza, for this dandelion…”

Gratitude is more contagious than a virus, and the fruit of it is joy–not death.

 

2. The Despair Wave

 

Then came despair. I think at some point in this whole thing your nerves get so fried from all of the bad news that you just get exhausted. “This is our life now…”

I felt it intensely one night but couldn’t articulate it. An invisible, heavy, nameless blanket sat on me as I tried to fall asleep. My mind was spinning and then just…stopped. I reached out to Jesus. What is going on, Lord?

I’ve been depressed, but this wasn’t depression. It came on too quickly.

I could sense there was something dark in our room. Now, I have been so so so hesitant to share things like this for years, but for the same amount of years God has been whispering to me, “Dear one, you need to share about spiritual warfare. I need my people to lean in more.” I didn’t want to because it could be misunderstood, misused, or just…scoffed at.

But guys? We are not in a flesh and blood battle! There is darkness out there and in our homes. Yes, sin in the world affects us. Yes, there is something called real depression that is a product of many things (physical, psychological, and other issues). Yes, there is sin in me makes me choose wrong. But we also have a real enemy.

And I was feeling him that night. I couldn’t just sense it; I could almost see it—in the space between my eyeballs and my imagination. And it was evil. So vivid and evil. Satan and his minions are not funny. They are not a Halloween costume. There’s nothing good even near his wickedness. Nothing.

I started praying aloud, speaking Scripture over our room. The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, and I went to my favorite passages: “Greater is He who is in me than He who is in the world. Get away from us, Satan, in the name and through the blood of Jesus Christ. The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to Him and are safe.”

But I was quiet about it. I whispered. Even though Matt and I are very close—we are one—I can feel insecure when it comes to sharing with him my spiritual life. (Can you relate?)

I fought shame and invited him into the battle. “Hey, there is something dark in here. Will you pray with me?” Of course, he would. (This wasn’t always the case, but that’s another story.)

I knew this, but how quickly we forget who our allies are.

We prayed, spoke Scripture, but sensed we needed to name the darkness—not just pray vaguely against it.

“I pray against a spirit of fear,” I said, but sensed that wasn’t it. The darkness was still present. “We tell a spirit of…” I waited. What was it? “…discouragement and despair to be gone in Jesus’ name. We pray the cross of Christ between us and them.”

I don’t know how to say this, but I could tell that prayer arrow hit something. That’s it. “In the strong and mighty name of Jesus Christ, we tell that spirit of despair and discouragement to be gone.” We were not loud. We were not anxious. We didn’t even sit up!

We were focused. We were side-by-side, battling with prayer. “You have no power here,” we continued. “Greater is He who lives in us than He who is in the world.” Over and over we prayed it for about five minutes. Then…peace. Joy. Unity.

Unity—in the midst of so much disunity, fear, and despair.

We kept going, now praying now into light. “Father, guard this room with your presence. We pray protection over every room in this house…”

We sighed with relief when it felt like the battle was over.

This sort of side-by-side fighting not only removes the assaults that could walk us toward division, but it unites us.

Not this pandemic, Satan.

 

3. The Disunity Wave

 

All I will say on this one is be aware of it. If Satan can isolate us into our homes, how much more would he want to capitalize on the movement and isolate us within our homes?

Fight it. Fight the true enemy.

Fight together not each other.

 

4. The Avoidance Wave

 

Avoidance is best friends with despair. In those moments where discouragement wants to come back and settle onto me, it’s buddy, “just give up and do something else more fun” is ready to whisper in my ears.

Now, there is a beautiful thing God is teaching some of us over-achieving, work-addicts in this season called, “Just be with Jesus.”

But, it’s easy for the pendulum to swing from “just be with Jesus” to “and also binge Netflix.”

The way we have been fighting this together is by starting our days in prayer and Bible memorization as a family.

I get that perhaps reading the above sentence makes us sound like halo-wearing weirdos, but I’m telling you, it has focused our days and energy onto the right thing. “What are you thankful for, and what do you want prayer for?” we ask each of our kids.

Hearing them and having the accountability (even with our three-year-old!) keeps us focused on the right thing that day—whether it be working on a blog post (with Jesus) or learning to add colorful chalk to my daughter’s hair (with Jesus).

***

Guys? I have let each wave knock me over and wash me away into the ocean of a pandemic flailing more than I’d like to admit. But every time I am near-drowning and I remember, “Oh yeah! I’m drowning in fear, despair, disunity, or avoidance. These are enemy tactics!” I am quicker to stand up, apologize, and regrip Matt’s hand at the shore.

We don’t have to drown.

We don’t have to follow China’s divorce trajectory, and we don’t have to keep spitting out memes about how stupid and annoying our spouses are. (As funny as some of them are.)

We can have a different path. We can build new muscles as we learn to grip each other’s hands as the fear, despair, disunity, and avoidance waves crash over us.

Then, when this is over, we may look in the mirror, side-by-side, and see, “Wow. We didn’t just make it through. We got stronger. More muscular. More unified.”

But we won’t stay there–staring at our ripped reflections.

God is going to use these muscles for the next adventure together.

Whatever that adventure may be….

 

Do the Next Thing:

 

1. Respond: What do you think? Have you encountered these four waves? Any others?
2. Read: Want to hear more about how we fight together not each other? Check out our book here.
3. On Memes: Okay. Some of them are really hilarious. (This one got us cracking up last night.) But as we read/watch them we need to be asking ourselves, “Is this promoting unity or disunity?” If you are laughing together, that’s something, but if it’s secretly passive-aggressive and just mean? That’s something else.
4. Pray: I get that not everyone has a spouse/housemate/whomever with whom they can live this out. But some of us do…we just have some barriers to clear before being able to grab their hands and stand in the midst of the waves. So, pray. Ask God to help remove these barriers and show you the next right step so you can do battle against the real enemy.
5. Reach out: There were years on our marriage where the above could not and did not happen with us. We needed help. If you’re looking for extra support in this season, hit me up. I will connect you as best as I can.
6. A thought: The idea to name what I sensed in our room came from reading Jesus’ interactions with literal demons. He doesn’t freak out. He doesn’t get all weird and noisy. He calmly, authoritatively asks them their names. Naming something releases its power and hones your prayer. I learned more on this from John Eldredge’s not weird or scary podcasts on spiritual warfare.