I’m one of those Christians who believes that evil exists, that Satan and demons exist. I believe they hate God and everything God has created, including people and all of God’s creation. They work constantly to try to destroy God’s good. The question of evil has become an uncomfortable topic for many people. No one wants to come off like SNL’s “Church Lady”.
Yes, sometimes people go too far! But, evil does exist. Just as God created healers for our physical bodies, God also created healers for our spiritual selves. As Martin Luther wrote over 500 years ago:
“Accordingly a physician is our Lord God’s mender of the body, as we theologians are his healers of the spirit; we are to restore what the devil has damaged. So a physician administers theriaca (an antidote for poison) when Satan gives poison. Healing comes from the application of nature to the creature . . . . It’s our Lord God who created all things, and they are good.“ (Luther, LW, Vol. 54, pp. 53-54.)
We humans seem to have a problem with balance. Too far to the left or too far to the right and we’re off stuck in the ditch. In response to how some people use the concept of evil for their own ends, like the church lady, some have chosen to swing too far the other way and believe that evil doesn’t exist. They try to explain away horrific acts of evil by saying it was caused by mental illness or some other physical cause. They lose touch with their relationship with the spiritual, and for them, there’s no need to stay safe from evil because it doesn’t exist, and there’s no need to remedy curses because they don’t exist.
I once found myself working with some people that were hateful towards me, my job provided accountability to the organization and was in the way of things they wanted. They were greedy people and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could literally feel the hatred. I tried to just ignore them. I believed there was nothing in the physical world that they could do to hurt me. What was right and just was on my side. But, there was no way around it. I could feel they were wishing bad things to happen to me, and their hate started to affect my emotional and physical health. Their hatred somehow, in a way I don’t fully understand, involved the supernatural and it was eating away at the good life God intended for me.
Back then I was still somewhat innocent. I didn’t realize just how cruel, vicious, and self-entitled some people are capable of being. These people started to go out of their way to sabotage my work and spread lies about me. They sabotaged my car. Our security camera filmed them coming into my yard and damaging my garden. Whether they formally cursed me in the spiritual world or not I don’t know, but it sure felt like it. When I went to HR, even with video proof in hand, it only made the problem worse, and I was penalized by my supervisor for being a troublemaker. This horrible experience has made me a better pastor, when people come to me for help in similar situations, and this happens often, I believe them and I invest time and prayer in helping them.
Over the years I’d started turning more and more to the psalms, the prayerbook of the Bible. I believe Psalm 91 is vital for protection and have it memorized. Other psalms, such as Psalm 109 or Psalm 35, seem to be written to turn hatred, evil, and curses back to the sender. I prayed and read the psalms daily over my situation. I was praying for a new job at a place where I felt accepted, safe, and supported. All my prayers didn’t work out the way I thought they would though. I found myself inexplicably plucked up, freed from wage slavery (I thought I’d have to work full-time doing work I didn’t enjoy until I was 67!) and set down in a beautiful seminary where the balm of God’s love poured down upon my soul. Never in a million years would I have believed I would go to seminary. All my bills and my tuition were paid. I even had enough money invested for retirement! It was miraculous. God’s outcome for me was so much better than any outcome I could have planned for myself.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 gives a short account of turning curses into blessings. Jabez’s mother gave him a name that means “pain.” Apparently, he felt that he was doomed, cursed, to be in pain, because he prayed: “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!” And God granted what he asked. This is a good prayer if you feel that you have inherited curses or bad fortune from your ancestors.
Of course there is Christ. Christ came specifically to redeem us from the curse. Christ has authority over demons, and curses, whether intentional or not, are caused by people engaging with the demonic. Christ will drive the demonic out of your life. Please, no matter how angry or hurt you are, don’t have hate in your heart and curse others. It just gives more power to evil. Say an imprecatory psalm instead and hand your emotions over to God, who will give you justice.
The gospels are filled with Jesus casting out demons and resisting the temptations of evil. When he, who was innocent, was put to death, he took on the curse of the law for us and redeemed us. Christ will stand in for you and take any curses put upon you upon his own self, freeing you from bondage to someone else’s sin. The deeper your relationship with Christ, the more you rely and trust in God, the stronger this blessing becomes. Some scripture to ponder over this, Matthew 11:28–30, Galatians 3:3-14, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Galatians 6:2.
But what happens if we pray and pray and nothing happens? I think some people can be more vulnerable to curses than others because of past traumas, moral injury, or things like abuse, suicide, molestation, or addiction in their family histories. Emotional and spiritual wounds are real. From the quote by Luther above, we can see that God appoints spiritual as well as physical healers. If you’ve prayed and prayed, and the situation you’re in hasn’t gotten better, I would consider praying Psalm 25 daily, asking for God’s guidance. Then compose a prayer in your own words for the specific guidance you are looking for. Reduce this prayer down to one simple sentence and pray it silently in your mind over and over again to God at night as you fall asleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night, just keep repeating the prayer. Pay attention to your thoughts and dreams and the things that happen to you, looking for signs. Be open to the idea that spiritual healing may come to you in ways you do not expect. However, be wary of the inevitable wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warned us about, fraudsters and swindlers who want large sums of money.
Other things you can do to strengthen yourself spiritually; finding a loving, healthy church (or synagogue or mosque). Confession helps keep sin from sticking to you. I believe taking communion brings you closer to God and God’s blessings for us. Worship, which is simply saying you love God, brings you closer to God’s blessings. Just being in a holy place brings you into the presence of angels.
I pray that you will find the spiritual healing and protection that you need.