Our lives are a battle. Our adversary is relentless, but our hope is unbreakable.
I have had a fair share of trouble, just like any believer, and it took great determination to prevail. Although our challenges may differ, they share many similarities because our enemy remains the same.
Today, I’ll share with you the tough battle I fought, how praying in tongues helped me overcome, and what I learned from the experience.
Most of the time, we don’t like sharing our struggles. While it feels comforting to hide them, the enemy thrives when we do.
I have seen many believers disintegrate into chaos for hiding their struggles. For the sake of transparency and to help other believers, I’ll share my struggle in detail.
I hope my testimony and experience will help you gain an advantage in your own battles.
My secret battle
In my early teenage years, I got hooked on an addiction that tormented me for more than a decade. When it began, I didn’t think much about it because it fulfilled my carnal desires.
Together with my friends, we would take our parents’ phones and watch adult films. As a teenager, the experience was very stimulating and addictive.
Shortly after I got into the habit with my friends, something interesting happened. One day, a question popped into my mind: “Augustine, why do you hide when you watch adult films?”
Unknown to me, the Holy Spirit was planting a conviction in me that would lead me to put up a fight against the addiction.
I didn’t like being dishonest, but I had found myself doing something that forced me to be dishonest with my parents.
In the weeks that followed, the conviction grew stronger, and it pushed me to the point where I felt I needed to stop the addiction. Up until then, I thought I was in control, but the moment I tried to stop, I realized I was never in control from the beginning.
What I thought I did willfully, I found myself doing even when I didn’t want to.
At that time, I had just given my life to Christ, and I was in my early days of praying and reading the Word of God.
“Don’t worry, Augustine. You will just pray, and the Lord will set you free,” I consoled myself.
Before resolving to pray to be set free, I had tried stopping the addiction just by deciding in my mind. When that didn’t work, I decided to pray about it.
Being a naive Christian, I assumed one prayer would make the whole addiction disappear. “Lord, take away this addiction from me. I want to be free.”
It puzzled me that I had prayed, yet there was barely any change. A little panic set in.
“If prayer doesn’t work, what will I do to stop this addiction?” I asked myself.
I knew if I continued, my parents would eventually find out, and that terrified me. I became frantic in my prayers and begged God to take away the addiction, but nothing happened.
One night, about three years into the addiction, I had a vivid dream that terrified me. In the dream, I witnessed the return of Christ, and I was left behind because I was defiled by the addiction. I was so terrified that I woke up sweating.
That morning, I made a desperate prayer, begging God to set me free. I honestly didn’t want to miss heaven because of the addiction, but I didn’t know how to get rid of it.
“Surely I won’t go back to the addiction after such a terrifying dream,” I thought to myself.
Two weeks later, I found myself back in the addiction as if nothing had happened.
When that happened, I began to despair. I was running out of options, and I knew it. I had prayed everything I could pray, yet there was no change whatsoever.
“If prayer works, and if God is powerful, why can’t He take away this addiction?” I wondered.
Around that time, I began actively seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
In my reasoning, I said, “If I get filled with the Holy Spirit, He will help me get rid of the evil spirits that lead me to the addiction.” I also wanted to receive the gift of praying in tongues, believing that praying in tongues would set me free.
Sure enough, I received the gift of praying in tongues several months later and began praying fervently. However, the addiction continued as usual.
I can’t describe how frustrating it was to go back to the addiction despite praying in tongues. I cried tears, begged God, fasted, used anointing oil, and went to servants of God for prayers, but nothing worked.
I did anything and everything to get rid of the addiction, but nothing was working.
However, despite the frustration, something was happening, though I didn’t realize it at the time.
When I began praying in tongues, I started receiving information about ancestral covenants. I didn’t know exactly how they were tied to my addiction, but I began randomly praying to break them. Because I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I just prayed and hoped for the best.
This went on for about three years with little success. The grip of the addiction was stronger than ever. I would go from a session of praying in tongues straight to watching adult films. I was helpless.
I tried spiritual tactics, psychological tactics, physical tactics, any tactic I heard of, but there was barely any improvement.
For the following three years, I kept trying and praying, saying to myself, “Surely this can’t go on forever. And even if it does, let me die praying against it.”
One thing I constantly did was make sure I repented immediately after watching the adult films, just in case Jesus returned in that moment.
Breaking free
Seven years after I began praying in tongues, to my sweet surprise, I did a fast as I had done many times before, and all of a sudden, the addiction ended.
I was surprised that the prayers worked that time, after not working for so long.
I had clues as to why the prayers worked, but I wasn’t sure. In the following months, I learned why.
Deception and oppression
You see, in addiction cases, just like deliverance cases, the enemy uses two tactics: oppression and deception.
Oppression is where the enemy is actively present in the life of a believer, tormenting them with all manner of things.
Deception is where the enemy teaches a believer wrong mindsets, such that even when the enemy is not around, the believer still struggles because of those wrong mindsets.
Usually, the enemy uses deception to gain access, which then leads to oppression.
Naturally, we easily feel the oppression but barely see the deception, and that is what the enemy wants.
Unfortunately, many believers fight against the oppression, not knowing that it is the deception that made way for it in the first place.
They go ahead to pray against the oppression of the enemy, but it persists as if nothing is happening.
In deliverance cases, this is where evil spirits don’t leave, no matter how hard a believer prays, or they leave briefly and then come back.
The enemy knows that believers can pray him out, so he deceives them first before oppressing them, to make sure their prayers are not effective. That way, no amount of prayer can drive him out as long as the believer is still deceived.
When you receive the Holy Spirit and start praying in tongues, the Holy Spirit understands the enemy’s tactics. He begins by undoing the deception before stopping the oppression.
In my case, this was when I began receiving insight into how my addiction was tied to ancestral covenants. The Holy Spirit wanted me to understand where the deception was coming from before leading me to undo it.
Undoing the deception of the enemy is usually a slow process, since you have to learn a whole new way of living before the old mindset is removed.
This is a period where you are praying in tongues, fasting, and reading the Word, but the addiction continues as if nothing is happening.
This can go on for several years, depending on how deeply the deception has taken root.
But the day the deception is undone, the enemy will be driven out immediately, and the oppression will stop.
God bless you.