You know how it is: one day, everything falls into place; the next, everything falls apart — or some combination thereof. Good and bad interweave in our lives and will, while we’re on this testing ground called earth.
There are “spiritual atmospheres.” When it’s good, things run smoothly; when it is dark, there seem to be problems at every turn — at home, at the supermarket, at the bank.
A “cloud” has formed around us.
When we feel that, we are reminded, by a book called Seeing the Supernatural (by Jennifer Eivaz), we need to step back and do our prayerful best lifting the cloud before it obscures everything, before we are engulfed by it. Pray at the first whiff of darkness!
Meanwhile, the spiritual atmosphere of a place can likewise have effect.
Every city has its own spiritual nature — and it manifests in our thoughts and emotions, even our dreams, when we are in that vicinity. In traveling, have you ever noted this?
“In one [city] I might discern an atmosphere of witchcraft, but then discern violence and murder in another,” writes Eivaz, a charismatic evangelist. “In still another city it will be homosexuality, and in another it will be a spirit of unbelief in God. In one city in particular, I discerned its spiritual disease in a dream as if it were my own — gambling, pornography, and addiction — and I woke up grateful it was just a dream and not really part of me!”
These things can directly affect and tempt us. A city can have a spirit of negativity, or anger, or resentment; of depression or tension, of irreligiosity (aridity) or occultism. We must be aware of the spiritual ambience — not just of cities, but of neighborhoods within cities and for that matter individual homes and hotels. When there are mood swings, a shift in atmosphere can be to blame — and like that dark cloud, should immediately be cast away. Some places even seem to have dark clouds always hanging overhead!
When Eivaz visited China, she encountered perverse thoughts, while in Central Asia she discerned deep anger and rage. In North American cities where there is drug use, Eivaz allegedly has seen snakes coming from the earth. There are good and evil principalities over every area, and what humans do empower or disarm — engage or disengage — the good or bad forces.
Which means: there are also angels! When a community has strong church involvement, she senses “the peace of Jesus in such a way that you can feel it coming off the ground and in the air.” Call upon such angels.
She discusses much more. A further remedy? The spiritual atmosphere, she says, must be directly “spoken to.” In one Colorado city, a preacher swept away the sense of darkness by declaring, “”Hopelessness, go away! I release hope and faith instead.”
Never concede to darkness. Don’t let it grow around you wherever you are.
For no matter how much there is, there is also the availability of great Light.
[resources: Seeing the Supernatural]
