Fearless is the Face of Spiritual Warfare
By: Heather Shoffstall, Director of Student Ministries
Spiritual warfare is real. You don’t think so? Satan attacks when we are gathered, focused, praying, and praising…let me tell you about our 2025 DSM Ski Trip to the Laurel Highlands and see if you change your mind.
Months of planning and praying go into trips like this. Everything from where to when, what resorts we will ski at to what vehicles we will rent, who will be our speakers to who will be our adult leaders; each decision is prayerfully considered. Then the day comes for us to head to the mountains, and we have a passenger that we did not plan on…Satan.
We were not even an hour into our trip when a student became ill and had to head home. There was so much snow and ice on Saturday that we got one of the vans stuck and had to call a tow truck. Another student became ill and went home, it snowed three inches while we were in church, Sunday, and we had to adjust our plans to accommodate, two students had minor hand injuries, our pizza order was made on the wrong day, driving was slow going and it took us so long to go from point A to B… Satan.
But then Jesus…
About a month before the trip, as I was preparing the lessons we would share at the retreat, the Holy Spirit convicted me to change the theme from “Own It” to “Fearless” and switched our focus to Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. At the time I was not sure why, but now I can see clearly that we needed to focus on being “Fearless.”
Fearless as we face the challenges that life throws our way, but also fearless in sharing our faith and living our lives for Jesus. However strong we are in our faith there are times, like this weekend, that we doubt that Jesus is with us in our darkest nights, or when Satan is attacking. Evan Reckless, a student on our Student Leadership Team shared our message on Monday morning and he helped us all to see Jesus and how he prevailed this weekend.
“These retreats are so powerful each time we are given the opportunity to go on them.” Evan preached. “We grow our faith; we grow our friendships, but I think the most important part of these trips is our way back. Way too often I witness these amazing things occur over mission trips and retreats only to find them to be severed the second we return to our everyday lives. Paul talks about this in Philippians 2: 12-13 saying,
“Therefor, my friends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
In this letter Paul is writing to his church in Philippi from a jail cell. He was imprisoned for preaching the word of God, and he still continued to do so from the cell, encouraging members to not turn away, to not lose hope, but instead embrace his absence as a chance to explore their own faith and grow in the fearful way we’ve been discussing over the course of this trip.”
Satan may have tried to attack us over the weekend, but Jesus prevailed. Jesus was praised in the songs we sang, Jesus was praised in the friendships, both new and old, that grew and were strengthened. Jesus was praised in the students that shared their hearts in lessons and small groups. Jesus was praised… this battle was a victory, and we will continue to give him our “hard-fought, heartfelt, it is well hallelujah.” (Brandon Lake)