A tale of two spirits

On the beach while my sister was in the water, I picked up her Philip Yancey book and had time for just one page. It was where the author said, more eloquently than I am about to, that God's quietness is because he is gentle with us and doesn't want to force himself on us. Yancey contrasted that attribute with the demons' roughness. He cited as an example the incident in which a man with an unclean spirit met Jesus, and when Jesus cast the spirit out, it could not help but giving the poor fellow one last violent convulsion (Mark 1:26).

Or maybe it was that other time when the little boy was healed in Chapter 9. The father had described the symptoms of the demon possession: "Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid" (verse 18). And when that spirit saw Jesus, "immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth" (verse 20).

It was an eye-opening observation for me, so my thanks to Mr. Yancey. There are, at all times and in all human beings, only two kinds of spirits that can be operating and animating us. One of those Spirits is marked by gentleness and the other by brutality. We read that "the prince of the power of the air [is] the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2). That doesn't mean that everyone under the devil's sway writhes and convulses, but if you saw Philadelphia drivers you would see that the influence of that universal worldly spirit at least tends in that direction. (My sister wants to get a bumper sticker that says, "Keep honking. I'm reloading," but I need to tell her that that would just be joining the darkness.)

"Cutting" is an interesting phenomenon and shows a more extreme manifestation of demonic influence. I know a pastor who was called in on a case like that; the teen was coolly singeing her forearm with cigarette burns when he arrived at the house. She looked up at him and smiled blankly when he entered the room. Then she stood and went for the silverware drawer. That particular story ended well, with the Stronger Man evicting the Strong Man and taking up residence.

It just so happened that the day after I read that page from my sister's book I found myself in a place of bondage. I was miserable and powerless to get out of my pit and I cried desperate prayers to God. He, for his part, was silent. This went on all day till I was near despair. I was pleading for God to change my heart and I knew just how I wanted it done---the automatic way, the John Donne ravish-me-while-I'm-unconscious way. I wanted it to be like the way women had babies in the old days---you knocked them out and when they woke up they had a baby.

No dice. God would not force himself on me. It is demons who force themselves on people, but the Spirit who is from God does something different---He whispers a notion. He suggested to me that if I would only commence praying for the people I was fearing, I would find I no longer feared them. It would set me free. I did that and it helped a lot.

The Spirit has a personality. It is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. The Spirit who lives inside me wanted me to partner with Him in my transformation. He wanted (dare I say it) my cooperation. And he was willing to wait all day until I came around to his idea as if it were my own. Gentle Spirit.

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