Phil,

This is very interesting.

I liked the prayer, and I'll try to say it every night, as I know those
demonic feelings have been there with me at times also.

Lovingly,
Pat Ferguson

At 01:32 PM 4/22/04, you wrote:
>Demonic Feelings
>
>
>                          By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>
>      Holidays often bring out the worst, or the best, in
>families.  Some families cannot get along all year long but fire
>up Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or the fourth of July, and
>everybody pulls together and enjoys themselves and goes home
>saying, "Why can't we get along like this the rest of the time?"
>
>      Then there's my family.  We seem to get along, for the most
>part, all year long, but bring on a major holiday when the family
>all tries to get together for a good time, and the worst sometimes
>explodes; belching hot steam, ash, and lava like Mount Vesuvius.
>
>      I was not raised by dysfunctional parents.  We did not have a
>dysfunctional family.  Therefore, my children did not come from a
>dysfunctional background and quite frankly, we are a pretty
>normal American middle income family.  Well, most of the time we
>are normal, I mean.  somehow, and for some reason, holidays have
>been wrecked one way or another on occasion by somebody in the
>family.  Most of the time, I can look back on those times now and
>laugh.  Well, if not laugh, at least thank God that particular one
>was over.  Then there are other times, when approaching any given
>holiday, I wonder, "What's going to happen this time."
>
>      A recent Easter turned into be another disaster.  I saw it
>coming but frankly, there wasn't much I could think to do to try
>and change anything about it.  For everyone involved, however, it
>stirred up old memories of old holiday family get togethers which
>went bad and created a ton of hurt feelings.  The Enemy knows all
>about this sort of thing, of course.  After all, who do you think
>is behind all this family conflict in the first place.  Therefore,
>I knew from passed experience, that the days following Easter
>would create more outpouring of even more emotional woundedness by
>everyone involved.
>
>      A couple of days following Resurrection Day, I took my two
>four year old grandsons outside with their tricycles.  My youngest
>son built a house on the back of my property so he has a 110 foot
>concrete driveway back to his house.  The little boys love riding
>and racing and playing on the long driveway.  As to their
>grandfather?  Well, he sits in a lawn chair behind the privacy
>fence protected from the slowly westward moving sun so he doesn't
>sunburn his bald spot.  Excuse me, I mean thin spot.  I hate
>hats.  So I am, therefore, able to get in a couple of hours of
>think time.  Some people who haven't learned how to pray with just
>their thoughts would think I was just day dreaming or meditating
>or napping.  I am not.  Well, I did drift off to sleep once for a
>minute or two.  I learn a great deal just by thinking my prayers
>to God and exchanging my thoughts for his.
>
>      On this particular occasion, I was still stirred up about the
>mess we had at Easter.  Some very ugly things had been said and
>although they hurt, they were not debilitating or emotionally
>crippling to me.  My wife was very upset as well and her pain made
>me consider even more how it had all happened, and more than that,
>how things could be solved.
>
>      As I sat and listened to my grandsons roaring back and forth
>on the pavement a foot away from where I sat on the edge of the
>long driveway, I asked the Lord this question.  What are the major
>areas still left in my life that need healing?"  He quickly
>identified three areas.  My blindness came first.  I had to
>admit, that I still was finding areas in that category which
>needed healing so I would be free from things surfacing and
>causing me pain and emotional discomfort.  Money, or finances, was
>the second area the Lord brought to my mind.  The third area I
>prefer to leave for discussion at a later time.  After praying and
>identifying these three areas, I decided now was as good as any to
>begin processing through until peace came to all these areas.
>
>      Since blindness jumped to my thoughts first, I started
>there.  As I prayed, never saying a word out loud, but just
>allowing my thoughts to flow freely and do the talking for me to
>God, I felt anger rise instantly to my conscious mind.  "Anger?
>Where did that come from?" Then I remembered.  We were flat broke
>and some bills were coming due for which I had no money for at
>all.  I hate money because of this and largely due to being in
>this same spot many times over my life.  So, you say, what does
>money have to do with your blindness?  Simple.  If I could see,
>even at 52 years of age, I could run right out and get any job at
>any fast food place.  Even if it were part time, that would help,
>and my wife wouldn't feel she had to work so much overtime on her
>job to help make ends meet.  So, the anger did have a source and I
>was, in fact, on the right trail.
>
>      Focusing more on my anger about being broke and my blindness,
>I asked the Lord, "What's behind the anger?"  Put another way,
>"What is the anger really trying to hide?"  I have learned in the
>last two years in my new walk with the Lord through intercessory
>prayer, that anger is never the cause.  It covers the authentic
>emotion so I prayed to go deeper into my emotions and thoughts by
>asking the Lord, "What's under the anger I feel right now?"  I
>wasn't at all expecting what happened next.
>
>      Hate flared in my mind and I felt fear.  "Hate?" I thought.
>"Hatred for my blindness maybe?"  I reasoned for a split second
>that such was possible, of course, but something told me that
>wasn't it.  Letting the hate intensify, I asked the Lord, "What do
>I hate?"  The answer I heard from the Holy Spirit nearly blew me
>off my chair.
>
>      "God!"
>
>      "Wait just a minute," I said in my thoughts.  "How could I
>hate God?"  You see, if you have read any of my other personal
>testimonies of healing, you would know that when I went blind when
>I was just 11 years old, it was at that period of time in the
>hospital bed week after week that lies were demonically implanted
>into my tender heart which said, "You'll never see again.  It is
>your fault that you are going blind.  You let others down.   It is
>God's fault because He let you go blind.  God doesn't really love
>you."  There was likely more, but that's enough for now.
>
>      When the hatred for God rose in my thoughts and emotions, I
>immediately ran back in my mind to the hospital memory where the
>lies were implanted into my subconscious thoughts.  "No, I said.
>"I have been healed.  Jesus said I was healed at that place.  He
>even said, we are leaving and never coming back to this place."
>So during my prayer time, I simply said, "No, I am not going back
>because there is no pain, no lie, and no woundedness or
>discomfort; there is nothing but peace now in that memory."  I
>prayed and simply asked the Lord, if there were other places of
>woundedness relating to my blindness which were causing this
>hatred for God to rise in my thoughts.  Bang.  Three memories
>sprang to mind.  I checked each one but nothing immediately stood
>out.  Then it hit me.
>
>      "Wait a minute," I said.  "I don't hate God and never have
>except when I was believing a lie spoken into my thoughts by a
>demon."  So I said, "Lord, is there a demonic presence in this?"
>Bang.  I suddenly realized what I was feeling was the feelings of
>hatred for God coming from a deceiving spirit.  I almost laughed
>out loud.  You see, now I knew I was going to get the answers I
>sought because the demon would lead me to the root cause of the
>hatred.
>
>      "Lord," I quickly prayed, "show me where and why this demon
>thinks he has a right to put his feelings of hatred for you on my
>thoughts and feelings."  Bang.  It was over; gone; eliminated;
>ousted; vaporized.  I was disappointed that the demon was gone
>because I knew he was the key to the hatred.  Later, as I thought
>about how quickly the demon left the second I asked the Lord to
>show me why the demon had a right to be in one of those memories,
>I realized why he left so instantaneously.  He had no right to be
>in those memories I was investigating for lies.  He was trying to
>deceive me into thinking I had hatred for God by literally putting
>his own evil feelings upon mine in order to deceive me into
>thinking those were my feelings.  The split second I turned to the
>Lord to show me the truth about the hatred, the deceiving spirit
>fled.  "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and
>he will flee from you, (James 4:7).
>
>      I realize many today do not accept that demons can influence
>our thoughts and feelings and I won't try and convince them
>otherwise.  I offer this testimony, however, for those who may now
>recognize that not everything they hear and feel is of their own
>making.
>
>      Here is a prayer I pray every night before going to bed.
>Perhaps you, too, will find it helpful.  Part of this prayer is
>taken from some prayers that another Christian counselor uses in
>his ministry.  This is a shortened version of his but is more than
>adequate for daily application.
>
>      "Dear Heavenly Father, I come to you in the name of your only
>begotten Son; the True Lord Jesus Christ.  If I have listened to
>any lies of Satan or his demons today and believed them as though
>they were true, if I have repeated any of their words as though
>they were my words, if I have felt any of their feelings as though
>they were my feelings, and if I have thought any of their thoughts
>as though they were my thoughts, I confess this to you as sin and
>I ask you to forgive me.  I take back all the ground I have given
>them this day and I give it back to you for your honor and glory.
>I pray this in the name and the power and the authority of the
>True Lord Jesus Christ."
>
>
>I Flew Kites With Jesus
>www.SafePlaceFellowship.com