Journal Entry: Blatant Attacks By The Enemy In Church
I used to think church was the one place the enemy wouldn’t dare to show up. I had read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis—a fictional series of letters between a senior demon and his apprentice, detailing how devils can subtly tempt and derail Christians. The letters even discuss how the church environment can be used against a believer’s spiritual growth. Still, I believed the house of God was off-limits. I’ve since learned otherwise.
The enemy doesn’t just show up at church—he strategizes for it. In this journal entry from August 2022, while I was still a young Christian, I captured something important: the reality of spiritual warfare in the very place where we gather to grow, heal, and be equipped. Looking back, I now understand how the enemy exploits our pain points and vulnerabilities, especially when we’re exactly where God has called us to be.
In this post, I want to unpack what I wrote, explore what opens the door for those attacks, and share the deeper insights God has since revealed to me.
God called me to City Light Church. He knew exactly why He was calling me there. That was the church where I would confront and overcome the very things that had been limiting me—and where I would finally develop true community. The enemy didn’t know the full plan, but he knew God had called me there to do something significant in and through me, and that alone was enough for him to try to keep me from being there.
Journal Entry August 15, 2022
I got attacked by the enemy at church for the second week in a row. I left City Light Church feeling down rather than uplifted. What opens the way for the enemy to attack? I’m much closer to God sitting here on the couch.
Two weeks ago the attack was tied to ego and pride. Thinking I knew better and also feeling loneliness. This week, the attack was from Pastor Jabin sharing he’s writing a book. That a literary agent spoke to him last year about writing a book but he didn’t feel called to it, but now, this year he feels it. He has a literary agent looking for a publisher.
The enemy spoke–or I should say whispered—to me about how I’m a nobody writing a book, who has written other books and started businesses and gone nowhere.
Pastor Jabin also preached on small thinking, which I’ve never been guilty of–everything he preached touched on where my skeletons are.
That’s been the case the last two weeks. My gifts dying on the branch. My gifts unused. My gifts wasting away. A huge wide open door for the enemy.
It’s interesting to be uplifted by one message–T.D. Jake’s messages keep uplifting me and breaking bonds. The experiences and preaching at City Light are revealing my pain points, areas where I’m weak, vulnerable, and at risk for attacks. The former uplifts me, the latter requires that I uplift myself through getting into the Word and rebuking the enemy. Which one is more effective? The latter could destroy me and turn me away from the church if I weren’t equipped to do battle.
God called me to a church where the enemy is attacking me.
Headstrong (an organization I did consultant work for) was the first time my gifts were used outside of the Marine Corps, and were fruitful.
I have no experience, no point of reference, no past successes, but tons of failures of my gifts going nowhere in business or ministry. The enemy is taking me to the graveyard where my ghosts are–I have nothing from my past to rebuke him with. I do, however, have scriptures.
“Call those things which are not as though they are” (Romans 4:17). Like Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, declare and prophecy life over things that seem dead. Jesus conquered the world–I am more than a conqueror. I’m made strong through my weaknesses and where I’ve failed because God steps in.
It’s not pleasant to get attacked in and after church, but it will make me much stronger and build greater character and perseverance. It points me to rely on God. That’s the point of church to make me more reliant on God–not the church, pastor, or other believers but on God.
Pride and Ego. Easy Entry Point.
The enemy didn’t have to dig deep to find his entry point—he started with the easiest target: my ego and pride. The enemy didn’t even have to lie—he just nudged thoughts I was already entertaining. I judged the message, the delivery, even the atmosphere. But beneath that criticism was something more subtle and dangerous—loneliness. I felt unseen and disconnected, and rather than bringing that pain to God, I tried to mask it by elevating myself in my mind. That’s how the enemy works. Pride is one of the most accessible doors we leave cracked open, and once he steps through, he knows exactly where to go next.
The next week, the attack deepened. It came dressed in the story of someone else’s breakthrough. When Pastor Jabin shared that he was writing a book—how a literary agent had approached him the year before, and how now the timing felt right—I should have celebrated what God was doing in his life. Instead, comparison slipped in. The enemy whispered that I was a nobody, that I had written books and started businesses and had nothing to show for it. Pride turned into pain. What began as self-inflation the week before, now twisted into self-deprecation. That’s the deception—comparison rides the same rail as pride. It either exalts or diminishes, but it always keeps the focus on self rather than surrender. And that’s exactly where the enemy wants us: trapped in the lie that God’s faithfulness to others is somehow evidence of His forgetfulness toward us.
The Enemy Leveraged My Pain to Strengthen His Strongholds
Then came the message about small thinking. Another sharp blow. I’ve never seen myself as someone who thinks small—if anything, I’ve always believed big, dreamed big, and dared big. But as Pastor Jabin preached, each point pierced something buried: dreams deferred, gifts unused, and ideas that never bore fruit. I wasn’t being called out—I was being exposed. And not by the pastor, but by the enemy, who twisted the message into a personal indictment.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just a nobody—I was someone who had wasted everything God had given me. The enemy dragged me to the graveyard of my gifts, pointing to each one with accusation:
“Look what you never did. Look what you’ll never be.”
It was a brutal tactic—but an effective one, because it played on something that still had a hold on me: disappointment wrapped in shame, masked by a belief that I had moved on.
What I see clearly now—but didn’t fully understand then—is that the enemy wasn’t just attacking me; he was reinforcing the strongholds he had already built in my life. He used the familiar voices of failure, insecurity, and discouragement to keep me from recognizing what was actually happening: I was on the verge of a breakthrough. Being in church, being under the Word of God, being in the presence of other believers—those things threatened him. He couldn’t afford for me to be set free. So instead of some dramatic confrontation, he opted for subtle sabotage: thoughts that felt like my own, emotions that echoed past wounds, lies that sounded like truth because I had believed them before.
He wanted to drive me away from the very place God had called me to, because he knew deliverance was near. But didn’t need to drive me anywhere; he only needed to keep me on my couch. And while I didn’t have the full discernment or language for it then, I knew something was happening. I felt the resistance. And even through the confusion, I knew I had to keep choosing God.
Each lie the enemy spoke exposed a belief I hadn’t yet surrendered. Each emotional wound he poked at uncovered a place God wanted to heal. That’s the beauty of God’s presence in the midst of the battle—He doesn’t waste a single attack. As the enemy tried to destroy me, God was using it to show me what still needed to be rebuked, renewed, and restored. This wasn’t just spiritual warfare—it was spiritual refinement. And though I couldn’t see it clearly then, this was only the beginning of a deep, transformative process I didn’t even know was underway.
Closing Thought
It’s not always easy to recognize an attack when it’s wrapped in your own thoughts, emotions, or past experiences. But now I know—just because you’re under pressure doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong place. Sometimes it means you’re exactly where God wants you. That season at City Light was meant to make me spiritually strong, and that doesn’t happen under perfect conditions. The enemy’s attacks were real, but so was God’s faithfulness. And what carried me through was this truth: no matter how intense the battle feels, no matter what lies the enemy whispers, the answer is always God. His Word is always true. His promises always stand. And when we choose Him, even in weakness, we step into the strength that silences every lie and dismantles every stronghold.
I would have to endure this many more times before all strongholds were made known and destroyed. And even with the strongholds destroyed, the enemy attacked me in church as recently as last year.