Spiritual Blue Streak: Who Is YOU?!

There is something deeply humbling about realizing I can believe something with my whole brain & still live like I don’t believe it with my whole life.

I can read Scripture, highlight Scripture, underline Scripture, put a little star beside Scripture, write Scripture in the margins, close my Bible dramatically after Scripture…

& then something happens in my actual life & suddenly I am spiritually buffering.

Because apparently there is a difference between believing cognitively & functioning accordingly.

& unfortunately, I have receipts.

I know God is sovereign. I know He is faithful. I know He has given His children authority. I know prayer works. I know the enemy is defeated. I know greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.

I know.

Baby, I KNOW.

But knowing something & living from what I know are apparently two completely different subscription packages, & sometimes I fear I have been paying for premium while exclusively using the free features.

I will sit with my Bible & read about God delivering people, defeating armies, shutting lions’ mouths, parting seas, casting out demons, knocking down walls & making ways where there were absolutely no ways.

And I am eating it UP.

“YES GOD!”

“Won’t He do it!”

“Look at my Father!”

Then something comes for me personally & suddenly I am little Jazmin from The Incredibles, sitting patiently on the curb waiting for “something amazing to happen”.

Any minute now.

Surely.

Perhaps God will send somebody.

Maybe an angel.

Maybe Paul.

Is Moses available?

Meanwhile, I have been praying for everybody except the woman sitting in my own chair.

That realization hurt.

Because I will intercede for somebody else without hesitation. I will pray over their marriage, their mind, their children, their purpose, their health, their calling, their grief, their breakthrough, their protection & their future.

But when warfare gets close enough to know my government name?

Sometimes I just…endure it.

I analyze it.

I cry about it.

I overthink it.

I call it “a hard season.”

I make accommodations for it.

I learn how to function around it.

I will literally redecorate around bondage before asking myself whether God ever authorized it to live here.

& this morning, one thought would not leave me alone:

Power is the ability to act.

Authority is the permission to act.

Those are not the same thing.

Just because I am able to do something does not mean I am authorized to do it. But the opposite challenged me even more. When God has authorized me, why am I living like I am waiting for additional permission?

Mark 1:21-28 wrecked that little arrangement for me.

Jesus enters the synagogue in Capernaum & begins teaching. The people immediately recognize something different about Him because He teaches “as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law” (Mark 1:22, NIV).

Then a man possessed by an impure spirit cries out.

& what caught me wasn’t simply that Jesus cast the spirit out.

It was that the spirit recognized Him.

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24, NIV).

The spirit knew exactly Who had entered the room.

Jesus did not have to introduce Himself.

He did not need a résumé.

He did not need to explain His credentials.

He did not need to yell for forty five minutes until the demon became sufficiently impressed.

His authority was attached to His identity.

That made me think about how much of my spiritual life has been spent trying to sound authoritative instead of understanding the identity from which authority flows.

Because authority is not in my vocabulary.

It is not in how loudly I pray.

It is not in whether I can string together enough church words to make my prayer sound like it has a seminary degree.

Authority is rooted in identity.

And that becomes painfully obvious in Acts 19:11-17.

There were some men, the seven sons of Sceva, who saw what God was doing through Paul & apparently decided, “Oh, we can do that.”

Sir.

No.

They attempted to cast out an evil spirit by invoking the name of Jesus whom Paul preached.

& the spirit responded:

“Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15, NIV)

I’m sorry.

Because every time I read that now, all I can hear is Martin Lawrence in Blue Streak energy.

“Who is you?!”

The spirit basically checked the spiritual guest list.

Jesus?

Know Him.

Paul?

Know about him.

You?

Sir, you are not on the list.

And suddenly Acts 19 started feeling a little like Blue Streak to me.

Because Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence) spends the movie walking around in a police station wearing the uniform, talking like he belongs there, trying desperately to convince everybody that he has the credentials to be in rooms he technically has no business being in.

& somehow, through confidence, chaos & Martin Lawrence levels of audacity, people keep going with it for days.

But eventually somebody is going to ask questions.

Eventually somebody is going to check the credentials.

Eventually somebody is going to realize, “Wait a minute. Who IS you?”

I could not stop thinking about how dangerous it would be for me to approach spiritual authority the same way.

Wearing the vocabulary.

Knowing the church language.

Quoting the Scriptures.

Knowing when to say amen.

Knowing how to make a prayer sound powerful.

Walking around spiritually dressed for the position while having no understanding of the authority behind it.

The sons of Sceva had the uniform.

They knew the language.

They had heard the Name.

But the spirit checked the credentials.

And as funny as that scene is in my head, the spiritual implication is incredibly serious.

They knew the Name without knowing the Person.

They tried to borrow somebody else’s relationship.

They had vocabulary without intimacy.

They had observed power without understanding submission.

They wanted the authority associated with Jesus without actually belonging to Jesus.

Unlike the police department in Blue Streak, the spiritual realm was not fooled by the costume.

That forced me to examine something uncomfortable in myself.

The enemy knows when the relationship is real.

Not perfect.

Not impressive.

Not performative.

Real.

Which means I cannot live on somebody else’s revelation of God. I cannot survive spiritual warfare because my husband knows Him. I cannot borrow my friend’s prayer life. I cannot quote somebody else’s testimony as though proximity to their intimacy somehow transfers authority to me.

I have to know Him.

And perhaps equally important:

I have to know who I am because I know Him.

Because spirits recognize spiritual standing.

They know the difference between someone wearing the uniform & someone carrying legitimate authority.

That realization changed how I thought about warfare.

I have spent a lot of time assuming that if I am experiencing resistance, something must be wrong.

“What did I do?”

“Is God upset with me?”

“Did I miss something?”

“Am I being punished?”

& let me be honest…

Sometimes the answer actually is me.

Because spiritual discernment also requires enough humility to acknowledge the consequences of my own actions.

Every inconvenience is not Satan.

Sometimes I procrastinated.

Sometimes I ignored wisdom.

Sometimes I said something I absolutely should not have said.

Sometimes I spent money I should not have spent.

Sometimes I refused to rest & then wondered why I was exhausted.

Sometimes I entertained a thought for seventeen business days & then acted surprised when it became an emotional crisis.

The devil is probably somewhere saying, “Now why am I in it?”

Which is why discernment matters so much.

When something is happening in my life, I am learning to ask:

Is this me?

Is this life?

Or is this the enemy?

Because those three things require three very different responses.

If it is me, repentance may be necessary.

If it is life, endurance may be necessary.

If it is the enemy, resistance is necessary.

I cannot properly treat a symptom until I identify its source.

There are things I have tried to rebuke that required maturity.

There are things I tried to “push through” that required rest.

There are things I called warfare that were consequences.

& there are things I called “just life” that I probably should have stopped peacefully coexisting with a long time ago.

Discernment asks me to stop reacting to everything the same way.

Because spiritual authority does not mean yelling at everything.

Sometimes authority looks like repentance.

Sometimes authority looks like restraint.

Sometimes authority looks like shutting my mouth.

Sheesh, that one was disrespectful, Lord.

Sometimes authority looks like waiting.

Sometimes authority looks like forgiving.

Sometimes authority looks like recognizing, “No. This is not mine to carry.”

& sometimes authority absolutely looks like standing firmly against something God has not authorized.

But here is where this got even more personal for me.

“The enemy doesn’t attack us where we are. The enemy attacks us where we are going.”

That does not mean every difficulty is a demonic attack. I refuse to give the devil that much screen time.

But Scripture does show us a pattern of opposition attempting to interfere with purpose.

& suddenly I had to consider whether some of the places where warfare has felt particularly intense might be connected to the very places where God is developing me.

If I am called to speak, why would my mind not become a battlefield?

If I am called to encourage, why would discouragement not knock on my door?

If I am called to help people walk in freedom, why would bondage not attempt to convince me it is my permanent address?

If I am called to love well, why would offense not keep showing up like it pays rent?

If I am called to prayer, why would distraction not suddenly have twelve new episodes, a reunion special & bonus footage?

If I am called to help people understand who they are in Christ, wouldn’t confusion about my own identity be incredibly strategic?

Sometimes warfare is not attempting to destroy me outright.

Sometimes distraction is enough.

Because if I can become completely consumed with what is happening to me, I may stop paying attention to what God wants to do through me.

If I spend all my energy fighting internally, I have very little left to pour externally.

If I become obsessed with my problems, I lose sight of my purpose.

If the enemy cannot convince me to abandon God, perhaps he can convince me to spend my entire relationship with God staring at myself.

That one hurt too.

Because before God can use me as an instrument in warfare around me, He has been dealing with the warfare inside me.

My fear.

My insecurity.

My offense.

My need for control.

My hypersensitivity.

My imagination.

My comfort.

My unbelief disguised as caution.

My tendency to know Scripture intellectually while living emotionally as though none of it applies to me.

& I am realizing something…

The warfare is coming regardless of who I am called to be.

So I might as well become that woman.

Not because I will never struggle.

Not because I will never be afraid.

Not because I will wake up tomorrow spiritually moisturized, glowing & completely unbothered by principalities.

But because I am tired of knowing truth cognitively while refusing to live it functionally.

I want what I believe to eventually become how I behave.

& that requires submission.

Because another uncomfortable truth is that spiritual authority operates under spiritual authority.

I cannot get over what God wants me to get over until I get under what God wants me to get under.

That sounds like one of those church sentences you put on a t-shirt until you realize it is deeply inconvenient.

Submission.

I am in authority as long as I am under authority.

Jesus Himself modeled complete submission to the Father. So spiritual authority was never supposed to mean I become some rogue Christian vigilante walking through Target rebuking suspicious energy near the seasonal aisle.

It means I remain submitted to God.

Prayer.

Fasting.

Knowing His Word.

Obedience.

Relationship.

Readiness.

Because spiritual recognition demands spiritual readiness.

I do not want to constantly get ready.

I want to stay ready.

& perhaps that is the biggest shift happening in me.

I am learning that the name of Jesus is not a magic phrase I tack onto the end of a prayer like a spiritual confirmation number.

His name represents His authority, His character & my relationship with Him.

There is access in His name.

But access is meant to be used.

I cannot keep standing outside doors Christ has given me permission to walk through.

I cannot keep praying like an orphan when I have been adopted.

I cannot keep fighting like I am unsupported when heaven has already established Who wins.

& I certainly cannot spend my entire prayer life asking God to move for everybody else while quietly assuming my own situation is somehow the exception.

Maybe the woman I keep waiting for God to send into some of these situations…

is me.

Submitted me.

Prayerful me.

Discerning me.

Prepared me.

The me who knows the difference between a bad Tuesday, the consequences of her own foolishness & actual spiritual resistance.

The me who does not blame Satan for every flat tire but also does not call everything “life” because confrontation makes her uncomfortable.

The me who knows Scripture beyond highlighting it.

The me who understands that having access to the Name is different from casually borrowing it.

The me who does not have to pull a Miles Logan & convince the spiritual realm she belongs there.

Because unlike Miles, I am not impersonating anybody.

I actually belong to Jesus.

There is relationship behind the uniform.

There is submission behind the authority.

There is identity behind the Name.

The credentials check out.

& maybe I need to stop sitting on the curb waiting for something amazing to happen while God is developing something powerful inside me.

I am still learning.

I am still discerning.

I am still occasionally looking at situations like, “Okay, Lord…is this warfare or did I do this?”

& sometimes I imagine heaven being very quiet.

Which is usually my answer.

But I am beginning to understand that spiritual authority is not about becoming louder.

It is about becoming more submitted.

More discerning.

More prepared.

More rooted.

More certain of Whose I am.

Because the enemy may recognize the danger of who God has called me to become before I fully recognize her myself.

& maybe that is why the resistance feels so personal sometimes.

Maybe the goal is not always to destroy who I am today.

Maybe sometimes the strategy is to distract, discourage & exhaust me enough that I never fully step into who God is calling me to become tomorrow.

But I cannot afford to spend another season merely knowing what I believe.

I have to start living like I believe it.

I do not want to merely know the right lines, wear the right uniform & hope nobody checks my credentials.

I want intimacy.

I want submission.

I want discernment.

I want readiness.

I want a life with God so genuine that I do not have to announce my authority because my identity already answers the question.

Because Jesus I know.

Paul I know about.

& Miles Logan may have gotten away with impersonating a cop for days…

but I am done impersonating the woman God has already given me permission to become.

By the grace of God, I am becoming a woman hell has reason to recognize too.