It’s been an incredibly tough and intense spiritual battle these recent months – moving not just house but to a very different part of the UK (south-east England to mid-Wales) – moving is never easy, always stressful, and moving your home into storage while you’re waiting for God to show you where your next home is to be in that area is also stressful – and the means to live in it!

Moving to Wales was something that God made very clear (it wasn’t the first place of my list where to go, even though my dad was Welsh – the south rather than mid-Wales though!)) and the enemy never likes it when you do what you’re as certain as you can be that you’re doing – and have done – is what God wants you to do, perhaps even more so when it’s not where you thought! With moving to Welshpool definitely clear – I thought I’d be in my own place fairly quickly (hopefully within a couple of months), but God had other ideas! (it’s been almost 10 months so far)- . . It’s been a real privilege to be here, yet the enemy assault has been way beyond anything I’ve known or been through. I’d say in my life, but certainly the 40+ years I’ve been in ministry.

I used to believe that the enemy attacked you at your ‘weak’ points, but many times over the 41 years I’ve been in ministry, I’ve come to realise that he batters you at what you see (possibly) as your strong points. As someone whose passion is to travel the world, pray for the sick and infirm, it’s infirmity primarily where the enemy has attacked me! In the last few months since I’ve been here in Wales, I’ve been battered with Deep Vein Thrombosis (my left thigh was 11 cms bigger than my right, which made any sort of bending pretty impossible!): cellulitis, the long-term osteoarthritic knees (they got worse when I got here and of course swelled up with the DVT), an abdominal aortic aneurysm, an as-yet undiagnosed problem with my right wrist (well, 3 different diagnoses – synovitis, nothing – then why is it excruciating?! – and chronic arthritis of the carpal bones and wrist!).

It has meant that for 4 months I haven’t been able to use my hand, so I haven’t been able to drive. along with being thrown (literally!) off a 6 feet wide bed at 4 a.m by something unseen in a house I rented when I first came here last year. It turned out the house was owned by witches, so unknowingly I walked into a demonic hotbed! What is amazing though is that I’ve had the privilege of seeing God heal hundreds of pairs of osteoarthritic knees along with a myriad other things in recent years, and I had to battle with myself for a quite a while feeling how could i pray for others if I had things wrong. It took some time to realise that it was a ploy of the enemy to undermine me, by making me feel a bit of a fraud. The fact that you pray for healing doesn’t give you immunity from illness.

The enemy hates it when he assaults us with his ‘spiritual attacks’ – because we’ve done what God wants us to do, when any Christian who thinks that when you’ve walked ‘through’ a spiritual attack, that’s it, we keep walking! The danger is that we think once there’s been a spiritual attack, it’s over: WRONG. When you mean business for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth, attack is incessant. Often,the enemy isn’t terribly creative, having a ‘go’ at the same things over and over again – health, finance, vehicles, travel, mobility – and my experience, and constant spiritual attack is a possible yardstick to measure if what you’ve done is in God’s will, it’s very helpful, and the great thing is that no weapon formed against us will prosper, and the enemy is already defeated because Jesus crushed him on the cross. So I’m happy that, while the past months have been constant onslaught, it’s confirming to me that I’m in the right place!

Enemy attack isn’t a ‘one-time’ event: it’s a life-long event. So long as we realise that we’ve already won, not just in the past but in the future too, and that we’re making a difference through what God’s called us to do, we win, and the enemy gets mad!. Friends here have said they don’t know how I’m still ‘standing’, how I haven’t caved in: I made a decision many years ago that I WOULD never give in, and that I’ll keep going until I drop. Of course, there are times when you have to stop and take stock of what’s happened to you or let the infirmity/sickness/hardship pass – and then get up and put the boxing gloves back on.

Just recently I’ve lost considerable regular financial support – friends who passed away, lost their jobs, Coronavirus ,and Brexit fear! It’s meant I’m totally in God’s hands as what I’ve lost monthly now means I can’t afford to rent a flat, and yet I’m sure – and others have confirmed it – that God spoke to me 6 years ago and said I’d have my own home again – again, because it’s 40 years since I last had my own home. Everything since then has been borrowed, rented, lodged, or loaned. Ever since God called me out of banking in 1979, when I gave up a home and a mortgage, it’s only occasionally been ‘stressful’ as God has done what he promised in 1983 – provided home, income (a struggle at times!), and security: but the enemy does all he can to discourage you and tell you that you’re mad. Well, right now, I’m ‘mad'(!) because I’m b6lieving that the provision God promised (and in 1979 when the first promise came) is imminent.

Winston Churchill’s famous speech has been my battle cry for as long as I can remember. ‘Never give up. NEVER give up. NEVER GIVE UP’. And I won’t – so the enemy will be my adversary for many years ahead yet.

IF, just IF, you want to support what God is doing here in Wales, and in other countries, then I’d be very grateful, as we all need enough to live on – and if God’s call includes travel, the means to get there!.

Amazing things are happening here across the Principality of Wales right now: with many sensing that a repeat of the 1904 revival is on the horizon, and for me, to have my very long time friend Ian Andrews involved, too, is such a blessing. Ian, like those who’ve lived here a while, and me, who’s just moved here, KNOW God is on the move re-digging the wells of revival from 1904, and wow, it’s exciting to see what’s going to happen!

Support:

Stewardship (www.stewardship.org.uk, account 20028331 – Paul Bennison Healing Ministries Worldwide), PayPal (paul@paulbennison.com), and I can send you my bank account details if you need them. It really is a very tough time financially so your help, kindness and generosity will be most welcome – regular support or one-off – which can both be done through Stewardship.