Tag Archives: personal development

HOW TO WAR AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF CONFUSION

When God puts something in my spirit, it doesn’t go away until I process and unpack it. I keep feeling the stirring to shed light and disarm the evil that is manifesting as confusion in many minds. 

2020 is known as the year of the global pandemic. Confusion is something many are experiencing in this season. We are bombarded by many things, such as conflicting information regarding our health and well-being in this covid season.

As though the pandemic was not enough, add to that the pandemonium. There’s no doubt that the Pandemic and the Pandemonium have amplified our personal and professional challenges.

A Pandemonium is defined as a “wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.” We have seen this on our streets.  The word Pandemonium has its roots in Greek. It combines the Greek prefix pan, meaning “all,” with the Latin daemonium, meaning “evil spirit.”

There is something sinister about confusion. The spirit of confusion is a weapon of the enemy. He unleashes demonic activity through mental, emotional or physical confusion in order to manipulate and assault our minds.

Confusion, from its Latin root means “to pour together.” This sense of being “poured together” is leaving many of us feeling overwhelmed.  The twin of confusion is Overwhelm. Confusion and Overwhelm are two sides of the same coin.  A definition of overwhelm is to overcome or overpower. 

To be overwhelmed is to be inundated. You feel like you just got buried under. Your emotions get taken over by an unusual and oppressive atmosphere. If you are overwhelmed by challenges, it affects you negatively.

Feeling overwhelmed on a personal level could signal that negative emotions have flooded your mind. It could also mean that the negative voices in your head have taken over the wheels.  Some other symptoms of these chaotic, negative emotions include: Self-judgment, a feeling of condemnation, a sense of helplessness, becoming self-critical, etc.

In coaching, the dominant negative voice in your head is called the Saboteur.  Sometimes, it also manifests as mental, emotional or physical tiredness, inability to focus, being all over the place, trying to do so much but unable to accomplish anything. 

Another manifestation of the Saboteur that I see in my coaching practice is when clients go MIA (missing in action). They stop prioritizing coaching because somehow life feels “out of control.” 

Because I coach on three dimensions: spirit, soul and body, I would like to share with you some insights on how confusion can be a tool of Satan to assault you in your soul. 

Firstly, imagine your soul as possessing “gates.”

Proverbs 4:23 says “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

This brings to mind the picture of a security official guarding an entrance, like the Windsor castle in London, which is home to the Queen. 

Why should we guard our hearts?

Hypnotists actually use a method called “confusional language” to bypass your intellectual mind so that they can access your subconscious mind. They believe that in order for you to learn something new, you need to be “open to new experiences”. 

Hypnotherapy is based on the fact that when the conscious mind is tied up, then communication can begin with the unconscious mind. You become more suggestible.  When “confusional language” hijacks your rational mind, they believe your “attention gates”open wide. In other words, the unfamiliar makes us vulnerable. 

There is something “hypnotic”about 2020. It could potentially alter us by redefining our need for humanity through social distancing, fear, and overwhelm in our personal and professional spaces, if we are not vigilant. That is why we need to pay attention to the spirit of confusion.  Confusion is a bait. It’s a hook to get you to abandon your defenses. 

These past months of the pandemic have distorted our perceptions to some degree, and it continues to alter our normal reality. It’s easy to be “hypnotized.”

Many of us do not know how to guard our soul gates. If there’s any time that requires vigilance at the gates, it’s now. 

You know how that goes…you hear or watch the news headline, perhaps it’s about something you cannot directly influence or change but it triggers you to a point of conflict with your loved ones, or even causing you to losing sleep. You become emotionally “entangled.”

When you become entangled, you are actually powerless because the issue has you. 

What would it look like to be concerned or to engage issues without being “taken over” by it? 

Someone wise said: “There are many things wrong with the world, but most of them are not within your control”. 

The point is,…we experience overwhelm when we take on what is not ours, and when we take on too much.   When we understand that we only have a limited emotional and mental bandwidth, we will guard our hearts more intentionally.

So how can we practically detangle from confusion?

Here are a few ideas…

  1. Limit the amount of media and news you consume, and resist the urge to always click on articles or news online. Take a step back from social media if it triggers you negatively. I have recommended a “media & news fast” to a number of my clients, and they have reported that negativity has decreased in their minds significantly.
  2. Be mindful when interacting with toxic people. Make sure you pray ahead of any engagement so that you do not get entangled with their drama. Remember you don’t have to fix everything and everyone. Being sober and vigilant helps.
  3. Practice compartmentalization. The joke is that men do this better than women, but we can all learn to sort and put things in their appropriate mental boxes. You cannot do everything all at once, focus on what’s within your sphere of influence and do it well. 
  4. Limit your Rumination– Incessant thinking over an emotional issue throws you into a negative feedback loop. It leads to anxiety. Learn to switch off. 
  5. Maintain your routine and rituals as much as possible. They help serve as guardrails in seasons of uncertainty. There are so many things we cannot control, but it is our responsibility to steward our lives well.
  6. Spend more intentional time with God, whatever that looks like for you – prayer walks, listening to worship music, biblical meditation, silence, creativity, dancing, reading or listening to the word, etc. 

“If you are not overcome by God’s presence and peace, you will be overwhelmed by the chaos and confusion in our world.”

What helps you detangle from confusion or overwhelm?