Life is not just about the things we see. Life is actually very much about the things we CAN’T see with our biological eyes… If we want a TRUTHFUL experience of life, we have to ask God to open our ‘spiritual’ eyes… to see into the unseen realm. This is what God taught me three-and-a-half years ago…
Hello, friend! How has life been treating you? Are you brimming with energy, ready to take on the next challenge, in fact shaping your life pro-actively to grow and develop? Or are you cautiously treading within the lines of the picture drawn by yourself or your parents or your husband or wife or your social circle?
Are you experiencing life ABUNDANTLY, or are you one of the billions of people who live lives in ‘quiet desperation’? Even if you have a job, a family, your dream house, your dream car, the perfect body, the life you always dreamt about having?
Did your life turn out the way you had dreamt it to be, all those years ago, when you were still dreaming?
Or have you settled into a routine of survival, month-end bills, duties, tasks and the occasional holiday to ‘feel alive’ again?
Let me tell you: unless you are living life in ongoing, close relationship to God, you are NOT living the life God has intended for you!
This is what I learnt three-and-a-half years ago. I had been widowed for a bit longer than two years. My business had hit a post-Covid-19 wall. My efforts at contributing to helping children from disadvantaged communities gain a relatively high-quality level of education and care had come to a screeching halt, because of reasons completely beyond my control. And my vision to help two hundred million youth across Africa to fulfill their potential, through sharing knowledge and skills with them using state-of-the-art technology had to be placed on the back-burner, because I was just dealing with the fall-out of the other three crises!
Have you ever hit rock-bottom like that?
But for me the worst wasn’t even these challenges. The worst was how at night I would receive images of demons in my brain! Demonic faces flashing past by the thousands, one ugly and more distorted face after the next, either with dead eyes or with voracious hatred, staring at me, in my head!
It wasn’t my first experience with demons. I had direct, personal experience before…
Like that one night in the house we lived in, at the foothills of a large mountain, where the Christian educational nonprofit organisation my husband and I were serving, is based. This organisation was operating rural hostels for teenagers, to enable them to attend school every day, so as to successfully complete their high-school education. The parents of most of these kids were not able to carry the cost of the hostel accommodation, so the organisation had been raising funds for over two decades to offer scholarships to such disadvantaged learners.
Caption: This image is AI generated and does not reflect the organisation I am writing about. I just wanted an image to show the contrast of reality that is lived by people at the same time and in the same country at this point in life: very few people have a chance to drive a yellow cabriolet! The majority is struggling to make a living…
It was during a period of intense spiritual warfare – conflict caused as a result of the behaviour of a co-worker. I learnt how conflict with people who do not share the same worldview as we do, is easier to handle, than conflict with someone, who you believe is aligned to your own belief system. This kind of conflict truly gives the devil a licence to kill, steal and destroy!
At the time I believe the devil was trying to literally kill me. I woke up feeling hands around my neck, trying to strangle me, and a heavy weight on my chest. When I opened my eyes, the room was nearly pitch-dark, but I could see a dark figure on my chest! I immediately knew that this was a demon and that there was only ONE WAY to stop this creature from choking me to death: I closed my eyes and started repeating these words in my mind: “Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, and the same into Eternity”. I didn’t speak these words out, I only thought them, trusting them to have the power to deal with this other-worldly creature that was persisting to strangle me. It may have been shorter, but it felt like twenty minutes, before the pressure around my neck suddenly stopped and the weight off my chest lifted! My husband was asleep next to me and he really needed his sleep… I knew that this battle was a spiritual battle and that the only help would come from God, so I had not tried to wake him up. Why spread the possibility of fear, when what was needed was FAITH?
As I quietly thanked God and praised Jesus Christ for helping me overcome this demon, my cellphone rang. It was a young girl, who was helping with housework at our house at the time. She was living on this farm with her family. Let me call her “Nora” to protect her identity. (I don’t actually know any “Nora”!) Her aunt was a ‘sangoma’ – a person who interacted with demonic powers. I took the call, thinking she may be experiencing an emergency. “Reinhild,” I heard her voice, quite out of breath, “Are you OK?”
Somehow, anger immediately rose in my spirit, because I realized that this young girl was aware that I had been under demonic attack! Which meant that her aunt probably had something to do with the horrible demonic experience that I had just gone through! “Nora,” I said sternly, “You can’t just call me in the middle of the night to ask if I’m OK,” I said. “Go back to sleep!” I wasn’t angry at Nora. I was angry at the devil for trying to convince Nora that he and his minions were stronger than my FAITH in Jesus Christ! “No weapons formed against you shall prosper” says the Bible in Isaiah 54:17. Yes, I was used to all kinds of spiritual attacks, but this time God allowed a demon to attack me physically, so that I could exercise my will to KEEP ON TRUSTING HIM, even in this crazy situation!
When I put back the cellphone on my bedside table, I noticed that it was 3:00 in the morning. This was the ‘normal time’ when God would wake me up, to ‘download’ wisdom, strategy and understanding regarding whatever was going on in my life at the time, or to help build my ministry or businesses in future. With this demonic attack coming right at the time of my very special ‘quiet time’ with God, I knew the devil was just trying to sow fear and mistrust into my spirit. Thank God, the Holy Spirit gave me the strength and wisdom to overcome this attack.
The next day my mom, who was serving with us at this Christian organisation, saw Nora sitting at the back of our house crying vehemently. “Nora,” my mom asked, “what is the matter?” And Nora told her under tears that she had been so frightened during the night, because she thought that I would be dead!
I’m telling you this, so that you can know that it wasn’t all in my imagination… There are ‘things unseen’…
If you don’t think about spiritual things, chances are that the devil – who has limited resources – won’t deploy a demon to discourage you. Just by negating that God lives and that Jesus Christ is our Saviour, you’re already ‘on his side’, so no need to scare you into submission…
But I’m writing this article to WAKE YOU UP to the reality, that the spiritual dimension of life is REAL and just hiding your head in the sand like an ostrich, isn’t going to help you… in the end!
Fast forward to 2021.
Seeing those thousands of demonic faces in my mind during this time of extreme stress made me seek answers on how to be better prepared to deal with spiritual attacks in future.
I certainly never wished to engage with ‘things unseen’. I had had a very successful career as a communication strategist, developing communication and marketing campaigns for some of the top companies, government agencies and international grantmakers from 1998 to 2008. I made lots of money, bought lots of things, decorated my perfect home in South Africa’s capital city, went on endless international trips, only bought the best. I also was blessed with a wonderful husband.
But with this lifestyle came an emptiness of purpose… and an increasing realisation that ‘stuff’ isn’t enough – especially when you have enough ‘stuff’… My husband agreed. He also had reached the pinnacle of his career as an architect, leading one of the most effective directorates in government. But his spirit was restless…
So when an uncle of mine, who was a missionary and who had started the organisation I mentioned earlier on, fell ill, my husband and I followed the call to help ensure that this organisation could continue its valuable work.
And that is when we came to realise that we had been positioned at the BATTLEFRONT between good and evil… and that we really needed the “Full Armour of God”, as explained by Google AI:
“The full armor of God, as described in the Bible (Ephesians 6:10-18), is a set of spiritual tools Christians are encouraged to use to stand strong against spiritual attacks. These tools are: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). ” – Google AI
Since that time, I have been doing life DIFFERENTLY! Making decisions that rarely make sense in the material world, because I follow the promises of God in the Bible.
In the process, I have lost my mother and first husband to Eternity in most difficult and shocking circumstances. At some point, I also almost lost my own health! I have lost my perfect house, my cabriolet, my ML, all except one of my kelims (Thank you, God!), most of my art collection (but I still have too much!), a truckload of linen, kitchen utensils, crockery and pots (I still have everything I need!), appliances, soundsystems, laptops, all of which have been stolen over the years. Post-Covid 19 I also lost all the assets of my business, and the organisation I mention above is under ongoing attack by criminals, vandalists and thieves…
But I have found what no money can buy: a LIFE lived in GRATITUDE, with PURPOSE and in ETERNAL HOPE! And this ABUNDANTLY so!
And I continue to TRUST GOD for COMPLETE RESTORATION, if not on Earth, then in Heaven…
I’ve heard people say “Your mess becomes your message” or “Your test becomes your testimony”. I can fully agree with them!
Eighteen months ago God gave me a new, wonderfully loving and caring husband.
This month I started to build my business back up from scratch again…
And, instead of just focusing on youth development in Africa, I believe that God has called me to share my testimony with people all across the world. And where in the past I had to build own systems and platforms to do this, during the past three-and-a-half years (while I was focusing on my personal spiritual growth) I can see that God has inspired others to build all the systems and platforms that I can now use to share my testimony!
This is why I’ve written this article. I believe that God has GOOD PLANS for each one of us. But these plans will never be realised, as long as we just live our lives doing what the ‘world’ does. To truly live the life that God has planned for us, we need to give up our own plans and efforts and START LISTENING to Him, ask him, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to OPEN OUR SPIRITUAL EYES, and to ask him to send the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and guidance on exactly what steps to take, each day, every day…
All the things I have lost, all my ideas that didn’t work out… I have accepted that I needed to place all of them on the ‘altar’, so that God himself can work in my life and through my life to fulfil HIS GOOD PLANS for me! Do I miss my yellow cabriolet? Of course. But do I want to trade it for the SPIRITUAL GOLD that God has shown me since the time that I had this car? NEVER!
Through all the drama and distress, I have learnt to TRUST and OBEY God. I’ve also learnt that OBEDIENCE to God is TRUST and that TRUST is OBEDIENCE… All those stories in the Bible telling us about supernatural experiences and miracles, are all the result of TRUST and OBEDIENCE.
Doing Life DIFFERENTLY!
I will continue to share my journey with you, so that you can see how this works in REAL LIFE. Both to encourage you to LIVE LIFE DIFFERENTLY, but also to share some of the incredible miracles and truly astonishing experiences that God has granted me, as PROOF that HE exists, that Jesus LIVES and that the Holy Spirit is ready to guide YOU into the plans that GOD has for you and for your family! Let me give you fair warning: it certainly will not be ‘business as usual’…
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REINHILD NIEBUHR 
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