When I was a child, I, as all children do, would act out from time to time. Depending on the severity of my behavior or the level of disobedience I might get a quick “stop that” from a parent or if bad enough I would get a severe talking-to with punishment to follow. When this would happen, however, I had the misfortune to regularly do something that my dad would get really angry at–I would smile.
“What are you smiling about?” he would shout.
“I don’t know.” Would be my unconvincing reply. The truth was that I really didn’t know why I was smiling–I just was.
Usually during that lecture I would also receive the fateful question: “Why did you do that?”
Oftentimes my answer would again be “I don’t know.” Unfortunately for me, my dad rarely ever believed me when I gave that answer, although it was usually the honest truth.
Fast-forwarding approximately twenty years later, I am helping raise my three step-granddaughters. They are wonderful little people full of energy, creativity, and love. They see us drive by the homeless and they want to share their snack bar or stuffed animal with the man outside the car window. They randomly come into my room in the morning to get cuddles and literally yell my name in excitement when I return home from work. These girls have sweet personalities and honestly, I don’t think they want to upset me or hurt others when they act out. This is why it is such a juxtuaposition when they act poorly without any reason, especially when they are well-fed and have had naps.
I love them a lot and enjoy living with them, most of the time. Interestingly enough, the second of the three smiles when she gets in trouble. I have to say that I can understand now why my dad got so angry because it feels like the child isn’t really taking you seriously when you are upset over their behavior and are trying to communicate that to them. I have mostly tried to chalk it up as nervousness, but even then it hasn’t sat well with me. Incidentally I have also of late had some run-ins with the girls where when asking why they chose a poor option for their behavior (such as randomly hitting their sister when unprovoked) and they would answer “I don’t know.” The oldest did this once recently where she and another sister were cuddling, and she literally just up and hit her sister for no reason. During the conversation I had with her (which was calm and well-reasoned), she again repeated the “I don’t know” mantra as the reason she did so, and as she said this, I realized something: My granddaughters don’t do things like this because they want to, and they really don’t know why they do them. Rather, they are being directly influenced by demons.
When I realized what I was seeing was demonic activity I didn’t freak out–there is no reason to. However, that revelation helped me to see that I needed to address some of their problem-behaviors from a different approach than before. When the second oldest is both acting out and smiling about it while I am disciplining her, I need to address the spirit that is behind the behavior and not just her. When the oldest randomly hits her sister for no reason and doesn’t even remember doing it five minutes later, I need to address the root of the problem: demons and their access points.
When I started to do it this way I got highly interesting results. The eldest actually described to me what the demons were doing as I was casting them out. She also told me at one point that the “king” was still in there. Keep in mind that I have never told her that demons operate in clusters and that the head spirit of the cluster works really hard to stay in as long as possible, even to the point of sacrificing other spirits under its command. The youngest was really antsy and unfocused as I began to pray over her, but as spirits left she settled down and had a better attention span. Additionally, when I called a spirit up and commanded it to tell me how many spirits were in there, the spirit, using her voice, said “a lot” I asked again, this time asking for a specific number, and it told me “sixteen.” I have news for you, my three-and-a-half year old granddaughter can count, but not very well. If asked for a number she is going to give me a small number like three or four, not any number over ten. This was a confirmation to me that I was on the right track!
After putting the pieces together and getting results such as the ones above, I am now firmly convinced far more of our discipline problems with children, and not just my grandchildren, are actually a demon problem. How would our parenting styles change if we were able to lead our children into soul-freedom at an early age and heal the inner wounds that give evil spirits access instead of letting them be run around from the inside by hidden spiritual forces of darkness? I’m not suggesting that every time a kid is disobedient that it must, therefore, be a demon, but I do believe we need to change how we deal with children’s problem behaviors differently than we have before. We at minimum need to look at the issue of demons as part of our discipline process.
I believe that as we do this, addressing root causes and casting out demons as a normal part of life and child-rearing, we will find our children grow up well-adjusted without all of the problems that normally plague teens and young adults: rampant drug-use, teen pregnancy, gangs, bullying, binge drinking, anorexia, sexual identity crises, etc. If this is a new idea to you and you have children, keep in mind that this realization should create hope in parents, not shame or blame for failing to recognize this problem before now. My oldest granddaughter is seven. Clearly I have missed the boat for a number of years, but thanks to God’s grace the tide is turning and I won’t be waiting another seven years to start figuring it out! Praise God for revelation and deliverance!
