On 20230528 I made small grammatical or formatting updates for clarity.
Last week felt like the week from hell in the Benes household. First, my husband caught a stomach bug that led him to diarrhea during the day and vomit at night. The next day, I left him and our daughter at home while I attended military duty in another state. That same day, he decided to go to urgent care for his symptoms but couldn’t find child care for two days. Once he found child care and went to urgent care, our kitten got sick. Twenty-four hours later, our kitten was dead and we were left with a $2,000 veterinarian bill; this, we paid with what credit and cash we had left. I flew home from military duty the next day, just to receive an email that the Army Reserve was out of money, and any duty that had not already been scheduled would not be able to be scheduled for the rest of the year. That meant that about 15% of my family’s projected income for the year was now gone. On the evening I got home, my little girl spontaneously vommitted all over her bed, and my husband declared she probably had what he had the week prior. To add insult to injury, she was scheduled to attend a non-refundable drop-in daycare the next day; but because she seemed to be sick, this would mean we would have to cancel, and now lose that money, as well. My husband mentioned this last point with anger at the enemy as he was changing out her pillow case.
That’s when I realized that this was not normal: this was a spiritual locust swarm.
Then …came locusts… [who] were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
Revelation 9:3-4
What Are Locusts?
There is a lot of prophetic and spiritual symbology in the Bible, so I’m going to offer my current understanding of what the scriptures about locusts may mean for your prayerful consideration—but take it with a grain of salt.
Locusts are unclean spirits that devour one’s resource’s quickly. When one’s money, time, energy, health, plants, friends, clients, or any other provision dwindles abnormally quickly, without much rhyme or reason, it’s a sign that this person may be under a spiritual attack of devouring locusts.
In my family’s example: my husband’s and my daughter’s health spontaneously failed (even though the doctors couldn’t find any virus or bacteria that caused it); our savings account and credit card got instantly emptied; and our kitten lost her life, all in one week. That’s not normal, people!
In My Father’s Protection
What did we do, you ask? Well, first, we gave our daughter a shower and changed out her sheets. Then, we prayed.
We began by pleading the blood of Christ over our household, and then praying Psalm 91 over our daughter.
“Surely, God will deliver our daughter from this devouring sickness!”
Psalm 91:3 as prayed over our daughter
Then, we did “listening prayer”, where we listened for guidance from the Holy Spirit on what to do next. I heard Father God say, “You enter my protection when you obey my words.” Then, God gave me a picture in the movie-screen-of-my-mind:
Father God was walking through a heavy rainstorm, carrying a big umbrella. Two little children were walking with him, but one darted out from under the umbrella from time to time. Father God called out to the child and told her to come back close to him so that she would stay dry. When she obeyed, she stayed dry; when she didn’t, she got wet.
Obeying to a Breakthrough
Then, God flashed me back to a memory from earlier that same day, when my husband and I were discussing our finances:
“What if we tried obeying God?” my husband said to me, partially frustrated at the recurring fear I was experiencing after every paycheck. “What if we put his faithfulness to the test in the area of resources, just like we have in others?” my husband continued. We prayed for me to be set free of the fear of being broke; I felt peace and freedom.
The flashback ended, and I was back to praying over my daughter with my husband, in the middle of a starry night, in a camper in Colorado that was short one kitten. “We have to declare our obedience to God’s guidance about our resources!” I half-shouted to my husband. “What?” he asked. “This is a swarm of locusts that’s devouring everything that is outside of God’s protection! We are under God’s protection when we have God’s seal on foreheads! We receive God’s protection when obey his words. You said I wasn’t obeying earlier today. We need to commit to obeying together!”
That’s what we did. “Father, we will obey every single word that comes from your mouth about how to spend our money, time, and energy according to our priorities and values, instead of according to bills and due dates! We will not try to earn more money or work harder to pay our bills. It is your job to keep our bills paid.”
In that moment, my daughter was healed.
The Taste of Victory
It was jaw-dropping. One moment, she was in tears, writhing in discomfort because her tummy was distended from gassy bloating, clinging to my hand on her tummy while begging, “Pray, mommy, pray!” The next moment (ok… more like 15 minutes later), she was asleep. She slept all night, woke up with a big appetite, and enjoyed being at day care all day without a single issue.
While she was at day care, my husband and I enjoyed a satisfying date: six uninterrupted hours of spending quality time together, dressing up in our new summer clothing, enjoying a tasty latte, a delicious meal, and a sweet treat.
It was all the more satisfying because we tasted victory that day in the spiritual realms, and that victory tasted the sweetest of all.
Photo Cred: Joshua Hoehne
Leave a Reply