Have you ever had a loud ringing sound in your ear? I have. In fact, I was woken up the other afternoon with my right ear ringing quite loudly. I’ve had this happen many times before, the ringing, but never for this length of time, and never such that it woke me up from sleep. The droning noise went on for hours!!

It’s bad enough that I have trouble sleeping at night sometimes due to working night shift, but its even worse when I can’t sleep during the day. Thus, when I woke up around 2:30 in the afternoon, the first thing I did was roll over and try to go back to sleep. That didn’t work so well. At first I thought it was something mechanical, as I can often hear the ringing sound from televisions when they are on, fluorescent lights, and other devices. In fact, when I was a child I could know the moment someone in the house turned a television on even if it was on another floor in another part of the house simply because I could hear the frequency of the television regardless of where I was. This should say something about the pervasiveness of electromagnetic frequencies in our homes and lives, given that this was 20-plus years ago and we have even more technology now, but I digress.

At any rate, I assumed someone must be using some extremely annoying piece of tech nearby that I was hearing, as that was the only explanation my sleeping brain could come up with. After an hour or so, when I finally gave up on getting more good sleep (I had close to 6 hours total I think) and just got up, I realized that it probably wasn’t technology as I have never had tech be this loud and persistent before. From there I realized I might be discerning witchcraft taking place.

It might be a jump to the reader for me to say “ringing in the ears equals witchcraft.” The meaning of this particular manifestation of the gift of discernment of spirits is something I have learned over time. Hebrews 5:14 explains this saying, “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” I simply know it from having it happen over and over. I don’t have a scripture verse to explain it or any other clear marker that points to why I know this is what it means, but typically when I hear ringing in one ear or the other, that’s what I am discerning. This is very different from the medical condition known as tinnitus which is also a ringing in the ears, but a steady and ongoing noise. In my case, it is only ever in one ear or the other, both the pitch and volume vary each time. Usually, when this happens I will pray, and directly after I do the sound fades away, lasting in total for about five to ten seconds (if you feel you understand the significance of which ear means what, please comment below). Thus, one can understand my concern when this lasted for hours.

Again, I’ll point out that I was fairly slow on the uptake to even realize what was happening (although I’ll blame a little of that on sleep ^_^ ), but in retrospect I will also say that my attitude was a bit of a problem. I complained multiple times to my wife, “This is SO ANNOYING!” She took it quite seriously, prayed for me, and was incredibly sweet about trying to help. It did nothing to change the sound at first, which was quite disappointing, but sometime over the next half hour or so the sound did dim down a bit even though it persisted. I found out about an hour later (about four hours after it started) why that was.

I have multiple friends who are victims/survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). One of them had a problem that afternoon, which likely began around the time I was woken up by the shrill ringing noise. Without going into detail about the situation, I eventually realized my one friend might be having a problem, I called, and sure enough that was it. This person was even thoughtful enough to apologize for causing me problems, even though it wasn’t their fault to begin with. While the witchcraft I was discerning was certainly a big issue for my friend, there was another problem that was probably just as large for me:

My attitude.

I have spent a lot of time over the past fifteen years honing my ability to see, hear, and perceive the spiritual realms. This is something that I have given immense amounts of prayer, practice, impartation, book reading, more prayer, and more practice. So when I am actually getting the very thing I have prayed for, I’m all bent out of shape about it?? That doesn’t work.

I had to repent about it once I realized how bad my attitude was. Mind you, I wasn’t walking around grumbling to everyone I met about the problem, but my internal state that was an issue nonetheless. In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus was teaching the Jews, saying “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus raised the bar of expectation somewhat higher than the law. It didn’t matter if one actually committed adultery or not if the idea resided in the heart. This same idea is echoed in the book of Samuel saying, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God is more concerned about what is in our hearts than our actions, because it is the things within our hearts that cause us problems (Mark 7:15).

My take-away lesson was that while spiritual gifts can sometimes manifest at inconvenient times and in inconvenient ways, I need to have gratitude the Lord has answered my many prayers in such a way. After all, I have not only asked for discernment and to flow in prophetic gifts, but I have asked the Lord to make me aware of what the enemy is doing so that I wouldn’t be taken by surprise. As I reflect back on this, the Lord actually was quite good to me in the situation. After all, I wouldn’t have been able to pray and assist my friend if I hadn’t been made aware of the problem, and I wouldn’t have been able to grow through the encounter if the Lord hadn’t revealed my attitude problem. I would much rather be the guy who has the Lord interrupt my life with inconvenient things for the Kingdom than the guy who has a predictable life and makes little to no impact against powers of darkness to begin with. And in the end, I guess all of that is something that I really can be thankful for.