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Spiritual Warfare

by Agatha Mangwende 
03/31/18
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Back in 1974 till 1980, my home country Zimbabwe in Africa was plunged in a deadly war between the Rhodesian national army and the Guerrilla liberation army. The country was renamed Zimbabwe in 1981 after the liberation army gained the independence they had been fighting for.
Though I was not yet a believing Christian in 1980, the Lord nevertheless protected me in a way I was not able to understand. I lived in the capital city of Harare where we were to some extent safe and ignorant of the fighting that was happening back in our remote rural villages.
One weekend I decided to go and visit my parents who lived in one such remote rural village. There was one bus which plied that route only on weekends, so whatever would have happened during the week would be unknown to city dwellers. There were no cell phones and the rural land lines had long been vandalized.
We alighted from the bus at the nearest bus stop to our village, still some seven miles away. The bus stop was at a small business center and what I quickly noticed were the rowdy men milling around the pub. One was noticeably carrying a long machete and that really scared me. They greeted us, we ignored them. This was usually an active business center since it also hosted the village school, teachers’ houses, churches, and health clinic. But on this particular Saturday late afternoon, it seemed as if there was no one walking around, except for the group of rowdy-looking men carrying weapons. Even the pub itself and the small grocery shops were closed.

I was accompanied by my young sister and I was carrying my one-year-old son on my back. Other passengers also alighted but after walking together for a quarter of a mile, we took different routes to our villages. There was no other transportation but walking. The seven miles to our village could be walked either by following the long winding gravel road which led to another business center ten miles away or through the jungle path which would reduce to the distance to about five miles. But you had to endure the bushy and rocky path. It was summer time and tall grass covered most of the area between the huge jungle trees.
Those rowdy men were bound to follow us if we stayed on the gravel road, so we quickly darted into the jungle and walked as fast we could. But as soon as we entered the bushy area, we sensed movement around us. There was wind, but there were also whispers and darting within the bushes around us. These unseen strangers appeared as if they were playing hide and seek with us, and it was scary.
I don’t remember praying quietly, but I think I did. Even though I wasn’t a practicing Christian, I had been raised in a Christian home and knew how to pray. So the hide and seek continued; we were sure that whoever they were they could see us, even though we couldn’t see them. As the sun was just about to set we arrived at our homestead. Our companions had disappeared quietly as soon as we neared the village.
To say my parents were shocked to see us was an understatement! They asked us how we had come home. We described the rowdy men at the business center and the unknown strangers who walked anonymously with us. My father was the first to tell us that the previous day a deadly war had been fought in one the villages just about three miles from our business center. The Guerrilla liberation army had planted landmines which detonated as the Rhodesian national army trucks drove along the very long winding gravel road we had avoided walking on that day.

If we had walked that road, which we normally did if we were in a bigger group, we would have come by the sight of blown up Rhodesian national army trucks and possibly proof of bloodshed. The Rhodesian national army headquarters had responded to this attack by mounting a helicopter and raining bullets on one of the villages where they suspected the Guerrilla liberation army to have its base which was usually in the form a cave. A number of villagers had died in that onslaught.
So who were the rowdy men with weapons at the business center? My father said that they most probably were national soldiers dressed as civilians but trying to discover the whereabouts of the liberation soldiers. And who were our mysterious companions in the woods? Again my father said those would have been the liberation soldiers. They were known to be very quick in their movements and dodgy especially in wooded areas.
They never showed themselves openly unless if they called for a meeting with the villagers. Villagers would find their way quietly during the night to the appointed cave and come back home way before dawn. So what did they want with us? It was for our protection, father said. They realized how vulnerable we were, with the possibility of those rowdy men following us and harming us. So they literally appointed themselves bodyguards and walked us home.

But they could only protect us in the jungle; had we taken the gravel road, the rowdy group would have caught up with us and harmed us. Why did we take the jungle path anyway? Because our parents had always taught us never to walk on one long open road if you were too few a number; you become an easy target, they said. The jungle path was safer because it had so many different paths leading to different villages. If you felt you were in any kind of trouble, you could easily run screaming to any of the village homesteads; someone was bound to hear you and come to your rescue. The gravel road was mapped out for rural buses and the few vehicles that plied the road but was well-placed distances away from homesteads.
Looking back on that incident some thirty-eight years ago and with what I now know about God, I see his hand of protection all the time. Spiritual warfare, the war against believers by the devil and his servants happens around us all the time. And it never comes with a warning; it is usually in some kind of ambush. What we need to remember always is the path we have been taught from the bible to follow. God will always provide his unseen angels to protect us and fight for us if necessary.
Reading the word of God, putting it to heart and speaking it out in times of temptation, illness, and any other crisis is the only way to combat spiritual darkness. A good starting place would be Psalm 23, Psalm 27, Psalm 46, Psalm 91 and Ephesians 6:10-18. God’s word is alive, active and powerful, when spoken and declared, it has the power to neutralize any demons the devil might send to destroy us.
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