Against Flesh and Blood?

This week I was reminded once again of a phenomena that has occurred on a regular basis over the past few years of my life: just as I cozy up to fall asleep for the night, I will begin to manifest allergy symptoms, specifically, watery eyes and swollen nasal passages. I don't think it happens every night, but it doesn't seem to have been seasonal, either.

Well, this week I did a set of experiments. About 30 minutes before I intended to go to bed for the night, I laid myself down and snuggled up my face right next to the sheets and then snuggled up into my pillow. I waited awhile in each position, monitoring my nose and eyes. No allergy symptoms appeared! But, sure enough, about 30 minutes later when I was determined to go to sleep for the night, my eyes started watering and my nose became swollen to the point that I had to breathe with my mouth open. I did similar tests for the 2 following nights and had similar results.

On the last night of my experiment, as I curled up to sleep for the night, my nasal passages were again swollen to the point where I had to breathe through my mouth. As I reflected on my experiment, I had the epiphany that my symptoms were most likely not physically rooted. "The consistency in the pattern I've seen is remarkable. This can't be explained by a physical reaction to chemicals in my sheets or pollen in the air -- I've ruled that out. However, the data fits very well with a scenario in which an evil spirit comes at night to purposely disrupt my sleep."

With this realization, I whispered (since my husband was already sleeping), "Spirit of allergies, I bind you in the name of Jesus. You have no authority in my life, for Jesus is my Lord, and all authority has been given to Him. Therefore, be gone and never come back!" Instantly as I commanded the spirit to go, my nasal passageways completely opened up and I've had no trouble with "allergies" since then.

In our culture, we assume that all sickness is a result of wholly physical factors: unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, chemical imbalances, stress, injury, pollutants, etc. But from the Bible, we can see that Jesus viewed some sickness as having spiritual cause(s). Perhaps we need to take Paul's words more seriously: "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against ... the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (see Ephesians 6).