Doug Tales 118: Spiritual Shielding, Part Two

What do we need to do to consciously have the “Spirit of the Lord” shield and protect us from the negativity and darkness in this world? Doug Mendenhall shares about shielding ourselves spiritually in Conquering Spiritual Evil, Volume One (2012), on pages 74-76:

The Book of Mormon relates a story about a Lamanite prophet named Samuel who went to the Nephites, stood on the wall of the city of Zarahemla, and called the people to repentance. Many of the people didn’t like what he had to say and were angry with him.

“But as many as there were who did not believe in the words of Samuel were angry with him; and they cast stones at him upon the wall, and also many shot arrows at him as he stood upon the wall; but the Spirit of the Lord was with him, insomuch that they could not hit him with their stones neither with their arrows.” (Helaman 16:2)

This is a great example of a spiritual shield around someone so that he could continue doing the Lord’s work without being harmed. It also tells us that spiritual shields are made of “the Spirit of the Lord.” Could that also mean the Lord’s “essence” or energy?

Perhaps a little story will illustrate the modern day use of spiritual shields. A friend and I were discussing this concept at lunch one day. I had heard of people putting “light” around themselves, but not a spiritual shield. We talked much about this concept, trying to understand it. Before we ate lunch, we asked that a shield be placed around us in the name of Jesus Christ. Then we forgot about it.

After we paid for our lunch and were standing near the register talking to each other, a man entered the restaurant that was dressed all in black, had black hair and black finger nails and he headed right for us. Then I saw the most astounding thing. When he was about two feet from my friend, he “tripped” and fell backwards. He got up, stepped back about ten feet, and just glared at us.

My friend said, “Did you see that? He tripped and fell into me.”

“No, he tripped and fell backwards,” I explained. “He never touched you. He was about two feet from you when he fell backwards.”

We quickly headed out of the restaurant while the dark man just stood and glared at us. Outside we realized that we had witnessed this man bounce off the spiritual shield we had just asked God to place around us. It looked like he tripped backwards. Don’t people usually trip and fall forward? He didn’t. Once we realized that he had bounced off the shield, we were quite amazed. It was incredible to talk about spiritual shields, ask for one, and then to actually see what it could do.