SHE: The Battleground Reflections(4)

One of the major paradigm shifts that hit me over the weekend has to do with The Actor. I'm not going to go into details; let me just say that we have had an ongoing battle w/responsibility as it pertains to schoolwork since grade 4. On Labor Day, I checked the online grade posts and, well, the explosion you heard that day was my reaction to the abysmal numbers I saw there.

But it matters...if he has a grade below 70 on his report card, he gets booted from the magnet program.

So we did the Serious Talks (or, as he calls it, the Series of Lectures) again. PTA open house was last Tuesday; his drama teacher set him down and straight up got in his face with the serious ultimatums: either turn it around, or you'll be pulled from the one act.

After last week's youth group session, he came home and rather sheepishly said that his youth pastor had preached the very things he'd been hearing from all of us regarding his schoolwork for the previous two days. That was encouraging, but I still wasn't sure whether or not anything would change.

"What is wrong? What's the problem? What happened to him?" were questions I was both asking and being asked. The answer was...I don't know. The best explanation he had was that, while he expected this year to be difficult (he has three AP classes), it was much more difficult than he expected and he just wasn't ready for it and dropped the ball.

I was frustrated and angry with him. We have been over it and over it and over it but it wasn't changing.

Then...Saturday afternoon's breakout session. Susan Dyer spoke on Nehemiah and the disgrace of Jerusalem...and how Nehemiah approached the situation. She gave us a worksheet with some specific things to list. She told us to focus on one situation in our lives which needed to 'no longer be a disgrace' (Neh. 2:17) and answer a series of questions about it:

1. Define the problem: - a) What's at stake? b) What needs to be addressed c) What will happen if this need goes unaddressed?
2. Offer a solution: a) Present a clear, compelling solution; b) What goals must be set to accomplish this mission? c) Write a testimony as if the victory were already won.

As I wrote out answers to those questions, with the Actor's situation in mind, I suddenly remembered one of the principles of spiritual warfare: If there is no apparent natural cause, there's a good chance there is a supernatural cause.

This was a spiritual attack; the enemy is going after my son's destiny.

I realized that we'd been approaching it all wrong; he needs to be fighting a spiritual battle.

And every time he picks up his pen..or sits at the computer...with the intent to work diligently with excellence, he fights the battle. When he refuses to listen to the lying thoughts that tell him the work is too hard, he fights the battle. When he chooses to work instead of play, he fights the battle.

I told him all this between the afternoon and evening sessions; he received it well. I prayed over him the testimony I'd written as part of the exercise.

I literally felt something shift in the atmosphere of the house.

Is the war over? No...but at least we are fighting the right enemy now.

And if I had received no other instruction on the warfare in my own life, that would have been enough.