So I’m in Baltimore attending the NEXT conference – and listening to the speaker tonight, I was having the hardest time focusing on what he was teaching.

Then I started reviewing my notes, and boy, how I was twisting what he was saying when I was trying to write it down…. It didn’t make any sense.

Then my brain started playing tricks on me, and I was having these really weird emotionally self-destructive thoughts (for those not familiar with my newfound (thanks to therapy (and yes, I’m nesting parenthesizes)) self-examination and realizations, no — I’m not talking suicide or anything else, just… sometimes you start thinking of things and it goes downhill from there)….

And it occurred to me, it was time to pray.

I spent a good amount of time praying — in fact, I probably missed almost half of his teaching. But sometimes that’s just how things work out.

Later, as I’m sitting in my room finding the boarding pass information online, I overheard one of my roommates and his friends discussing how they felt disconnected during the session — just like I had. For one of them it was so strong that he ended up leaving, just to end up being ministered to by God outside showing him the falseness of his thoughts.

The moral of the story:

Do NOT underestimate the power of spiritual warfare, especially if you are in a room with some-3000 other Christians worshiping God at a conference that is being blanketed in prayer.

Sometimes Satan strikes when we think we are at our strongest….