What Are Examples of Spiritual Warfare?
Jul 17, 2026Summary
Have you ever looked at the sheer chaos of your daily schedule and wondered, what are examples of spiritual warfare in day-to-day mom life? When you are trying your best to run a peaceful home, but suddenly everyone is melting down, your teens are isolated, and you are feeling completely overwhelmed, it is hard to tell if you are just dealing with bad attitudes or a strategic ambush from the enemy.
You are in the exact right place! In this episode of the Arise Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson is joined by librarian, mother, and ministry leader LeMira Wheelwright to expose the hidden footprints of the adversary in your household. We look at Genesis 37 to see how family division has always been one of the oldest plays in the enemy's playbook, aiming to weaken the structural shield over our homes.
LeMira shares five real-world, modern battlefields: school overwhelm, the addiction to being busy, negative body image, school drama/bullying, and the toxic cycle of community gossip. More importantly, she shares brilliant, practical strategies to counter each attack—from sacrificing the noise by putting your phone in the kitchen at night, to praying for your child's bullies in the name of Jesus Christ. Tune in to stop fighting your family and start fighting FOR them today!
Episode Takeaways
- The Blueprint of Division (Genesis 37): The enemy loves to target the home. If he can use everyday stress, comparison, or favoritism to drive a wedge between family members (just like Joseph's brothers), he can weaken the spiritual shield over everyone.
- The Addiction to Busy: The adversary uses our packed schedules as a weapon. Overwhelming ourselves with endless activities is a form of spiritual warfare because it keeps us too tired and busy to connect with our family or connect with God.
- Physical & Mental Warfare: Warfare often looks like physical exhaustion leading to emotional eating, followed immediately by shaming, identity-blurring thoughts like, "I'm ugly" or "I'm not skinny enough."
- The Gossip Stop-Line: Grief or venting often turns into toxic gossip in communities. You can break this form of spiritual warfare by being the endpoint: listen with empathy, but refuse to pass the story on to anyone else.
- Practical Spirituality: Sometimes spiritual warfare looks like physically placing your smartphone in the kitchen at night so you can actually connect with God before your head hits the pillow!
Free Resource: A Woman's Guide to Spiritual Warfare
Get our free A Mother's Spiritual Defense Guide: 6 Empowering Steps to Fortify Home & Family downloadable pdf here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/A-Mothers-Spiritual-Defense-Guide
Reflection Questions
- Look at your calendar right now. Are you currently falling for the "addiction to busy," and how is it affecting your family's connection to God?
- When your kids are overwhelmed by school or drama, do you recognize it as potential spiritual warfare or just normal teenage angst?
- How can you implement the "gossip stop-line" in your own friend groups or community this week?
Host & Guest
Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson
LeMira Wheelwright @lemira.wheelwright
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.560 - 00:00:19.040
Hey, my friend, have you ever wondered what are examples of spiritual warfare in actual day to day mom life?
Because you're trying your best to run a peaceful home, suddenly your kids are melting down, your schedule is a chaotic mess, and everyone seems to be walking on eggshells.
Ugh. This is difficult because when life gets heavy, it's hard to tell if you're just dealing with a bad attitude or a literal struggle. Strategic ambush from the enemy. Well, stay tuned. You are in the right place.
And by the end of today's episode, you'll know how to spot the hidden footprints of the adversary in your household, how to break the cycle of family division, and five simple real world strategies you can use to reclaim your peace today. Stay tuned. Ordinary women, Extraordinary faith. When God calls, we say yes. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and today I'm thrilled to be back with my wonderful guest, Lamyra Wheelwright. She's a librarian, a ministry leader, and a mother navigating the front lines with a preteen, a teen, and a college student.
And today, we are mapping out three huge tactical truths as we tackle what are the examples of spiritual warfare? First is the blueprint of household division, looking at how the enemy uses everyday stress and comparison to drive a wedge between family members.
Second, the five hidden battlefields, where we share real life examples of spiritual attacks in our schedules, in our homes, in our health, and in our schools, as well as their solutions. And finally, the safe space solution, how to sacrifice the noise, Put down the screens, and draw your family back into the heart of God.
Before we dive into Lamyra's powerful examples, we have to understand that family division is one of the oldest plays in the adversary's playbook. If you look at Genesis chapter 37, we see a textbook example of spiritual warfare in a family. Remember Joseph of Egypt? Yeah.
His family, which was completely fractured by favoritism that bred envy.
Bitter communication among his brothers that got so toxic that Joseph's own flesh and blood literally turned on him, plotting his destruction and selling him into slavery. The enemy loves to target the home because if he can divide a family, he can weaken the structural shield over each of us.
But what does this war look like on an ordinary Friday in 2026?
Listen, as Lemyra shares her two first major example, school overwhelm and the addiction to being busy, along with her brilliant strategies to counter them.
LeMira Wheelwright
00:03:00.240 - 00:04:32.900
So some of the things that I've seen, especially recently with, like, all the stuff going on one Is overwhelmed in school, Whether it's the end of the year testing or just grades, trying to keep it, keep up but falling behind, avoiding the work and how that look is. A lot of times you'll see isolation. You'll see them getting on screens all the time. They're really combative, dragging their feet.
And usually there can be other things going on there. Like recently we discovered, hey, we have a couple kids that need some medication help. And we're like, oh, that. Like, night and day difference.
But it can turn into spiritual warfare if it's not taken care of or treated. But overwhelm. And we all feel that.
Even in work, I was getting so overwhelmed, and then I'm avoiding doing the things that would take me five minutes, but instead it takes me three weeks. Right? So that's an example. Another one is being addicted to stress and busy. Sometimes we think that that's a badge.
Like, oh, my kids got to be involved in music and sports and this activity and this. And. And we go, go, go, go, go, go. And we don't know how to stop. And then when we do stop, we either crash or something.
But it's like we always have to fill our docket with things. We have to fill our schedule instead of connecting with each other and taking that time.
And the adversary will do that because it keeps us from connecting as a family and connecting to God. We'll just be so busy, so tired, and then we can't sleep. Right.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:04:33.380 - 00:04:39.460
How do you invite God in to help you counter those situations when they arise?
LeMira Wheelwright
00:04:39.620 - 00:06:01.760
If it's with my kids, the first thing I. I'm doing is I'm on my knees. And sometimes this. This sounds crazy, but sometimes it's on social media that I'm praying to know what. And suddenly an account pops up about.
It might be a counselor or a therapist for teens and for parents on how to handle situations. The other thing I do is when. When it comes to school, I realize, like, with my kids, they need some strategies.
And instead of me saying, well, you gotta go get that done, I say, hey, let's work together and get this done. And I make time for them. And I might say no to something else. For me, that time, I might do a little sacrificing.
When it comes to being addicted to stress, this was a personal thing. I literally had to say no to things. It's time to say no to book club. I'm a librarian. I love to read books.
But I had to say no to book club because it was just piling it on my Plate, right. I needed to say no to my phone in my room.
I'm going to put my phone in the kitchen so that at night I can connect with God before bed instead of falling asleep to playing that silly game or reading something. But instead I'm going to pray and I'm going to journal before I love.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:06:01.760 - 00:07:01.400
How practical Lamyra is. Sometimes spiritual warfare looks like putting your phone in the kitchen at night so you can actually talk to God before your head hits the pillow.
But the enemy doesn't stop with our schedules. He aggressively targets our physical bodies and our social circles.
He loves to use physical exhaustion, shaming, identity blurring thoughts in our minds or comparison at school to breed bullying and panic attacks in our own kids. It's exactly what the apostle Peter warned us about when he said we are living in a fallen world and shouldn't be blindsided by the friction.
In First Peter, chapter 4, verse 12, he says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. It isn't strange, my friend. Now Lamyra is going to share how she handles the warfare of negative body image, school drama and community gossip.
LeMira Wheelwright
00:07:01.480 - 00:10:31.140
And that leads to my third one, which is health. Like an example of that spiritual warfare is we're not taking care of ourselves, we're not getting sleep, we're not exercising.
And then that turns into, I'm going to eat my emotions because I'm so stressed. I'm raiding the pantry that might only have fruit snacks in it, but I'm raiding the pantry, I'm eating those emotions.
And then I'm like telling myself, man, I've got fat legs or I'm ugly or I hear, and I'm hearing this from my kids too, oh, I'm just not skinny enough or I need to go to the gym, I need to do this and that spiritual warfare attack on ourselves. And then when it comes to the eating, huh, maybe we need to change what's in my pantry.
Or maybe I need to take a walk and ask my kids or my husband, hey, let's go take a walk after school. Let's walk home. Let's walk and let's do a walk and talk. Those are some of our favorites. My husband and I as a walk and talk.
Another one I see is the social interactions that we tend at home. Suddenly they are criticizing everybody around them and they're using, they're calling people names or saying something and I'm like, wait a minute.
And then I turn around and find out that there's some bullying going on at school, right? Or there is some girlfriend drama going on with girls and friends and, and going, oh, wait a minute, so we need to talk that out.
And so what does that look like for my, for my family, it's panic attacks and kids literally throwing up at school. They're not sick, but their body is sick. Trying to keep them away from it.
And when it comes to social interactions with my kids, it's really helping them find strategies.
Going to the school with them, talking to a counselor, talking to their teacher, going to bat with them and praying together with them to love their enemies. Praying for those people that are hurting them. And that's hard because no kid wants to pray for their enemy. And so that's another example.
And then the last one I see happens a lot in my extended family or even not even just in my family, but in a community or in a congregation. You see people who are upset or hurt by the actions of somebody else.
And so there's a lot of gossiping going on or there is a lot of victimization that's happening about, well, nobody ever cares about my opinion or they're saying all of this stuff about me, or it's really their grief is turning to gossiping and hurting others. And then when it comes to gossiping, this is big, I think, because sometimes we think that gossiping is listening or venting or helping.
But when gossiping becomes gossiping is when somebody comes to us and they're venting and then we turn around to somebody else and tell them, can you believe that? They just told me all of this is happening. Did you know this was happening in their life? But instead I listen and I say, wow, that's a lot.
I'm so sorry this is happening to you. And guess what? It stops with me.
Or I ask them, hey, did you know if you talk to this person, they might be able to help you with that, you know, but I'm not taking it on and I'm not sharing that.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:10:31.620 - 00:11:53.150
Wow, what a powerful, authoritative stance for a mother. When you know what spiritual warfare looks like, you can finally stop fighting your family and start fighting for them.
If you are ready to identify the enemy's footprints in your own household and want a step by step guide to help build an impenetrable shield over your children, we want to give you our Free a Mother Spiritual Defense Guide. Six empowering steps to fortify home and family. And it's free at the link below.
When you open your guide, turn straight to step number three, Mastering discernment.
Where we map out the exact questions you can ask the moment the atmosphere shifts in a room, along with a checklist of the subtle indicators of darkness like sudden heaviness, avoidant behavior, and division so you can confidently catch the enemy's tools before they ever take root in your home. You, my friend, are a warrior of light and you have heaven backed power to protect your camp.
May you stand by Jesus as He stands by you, and until next time, may you arise. Do it God's way. God strong. If today's episode helped you feel a little closer to God, please like and subscribe.
It helps us grow and ensures Heaven's whispers. Stay at the top of your feed whenever you need them most.
