What To Do When You Feel Under Spiritual Attack
Jun 18, 2026Summary
Have you ever wondered what to do when you feel under spiritual attack? Perhaps you have felt a sudden, paralyzing heavy cloud of gloom land on you out of nowhere, leaving you feeling completely stuck, isolated, and unable to even form a prayer. When you are sitting in the crosshairs of an adversarial attack, you don’t have time to wade around defensively—you need immediate, actionable steps to shatter that darkness!
In this episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson is joined by trauma support group leader Bonnie Randall to share three direct offensive strategies you can use today. We unpack the biblical dual-command found in James 4:7—why we must first submit to God before we can effectively resist the devil in the name of Jesus Christ.
Discover the "Shadow Principle" and why overanalyzing an attack actually magnifies the enemy’s presence in your room. Then, learn how to use Bonnie’s 3-Step Lifeline Prayer to break emotional paralysis and receive a customized "Authority Checklist" from the Holy Spirit. Tune in to stop focusing on the shadows, pivot toward God's protocol of progression, and learn the exact questions to ask God to make the enemy flee from your presence!
Episode Takeaways
- The Dual Command (James 4:7): God gives us an exact order of operations: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." You must first intentionally align your face with God's light before you can successfully resist the darkness.
- The Shadow Principle: When we hyper-focus on the darkness or overanalyze a spiritual attack, we actually feed the enemy! Just like a "boogeyman in the corner," whatever you give attention to grows. You must pivot your focus entirely toward God.
- The Goal is Progression: The enemy wants you stuck, buried, and trapped in a hole. The Savior, Jesus Christ, wants you whole, in harmony, and progressing. Repentance simply means turning your face toward God again and choosing to move forward.
- The 3-Step Lifeline Prayer: When you feel overwhelmed, stop and ask God three specific questions: 1. Is this emotion mine? 2. Is it in the normal human range? 3. What can I do to feel better? Wait for His customized "Authority Checklist" to know exactly how to proceed.
The 3-Step Lifeline Prayer & The Authority Checklist
When you feel hyped up or overwhelmed, stop and ask God these specific questions:
- "Dear Lord, is this emotion mine?" (Wait for a Yes/No).
- "Is it in the normal range of emotions?" (Wait for a Yes/No).
- "What do I need to do to combat this?"
If the emotion is NOT yours and is an out-of-bounds spiritual attack, listen for these specific "Authority Checklist" prompts from the Spirit:
- Do I need to cast Satan out of my midst?
- Do I need to continue praying?
- Do I need to repent or ask forgiveness from someone?
- Do I need to call a friend or a pastor for help?
- Do I need to read a specific scripture?
- Do I need to get on my knees and invite holy angels into my house?
Free Resource
Ready to learn the exact prayer to make the enemy flee? 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
- When you feel overwhelmed or under attack, do you tend to hyper-focus on the "shadows" and overanalyze the darkness, or do you immediately pivot toward the light?
- Have you ever stopped to ask God, "Is this emotion actually mine?" How would it change your response to know a feeling of dread or anger didn't belong to you?
- Look at the order in James 4:7. Are you trying to resist the devil before submitting yourself to God?
Host & Guest
Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson
Bonnie Randall @bonnie.randall
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.560 - 00:02:37.210
Hey my friend, have you ever wondered what to do when you feel under spiritual attack?
Perhaps you felt a sudden paralyzing heavy cloud of gloom land on you out of nowhere, leaving you feeling completely stuck, isolated and unable to pray. And you know you need immediate, actionable steps to shatter that darkness. Well, you are in the right place, my friend.
By the end of today's episode, you'll have a practical three steps so scriptural test to clear the atmosphere and make the enemy flee from your presence. 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 I'm back with trauma support group leader Bonnie Randall. And I'm so excited to have her on the show today.
When you find yourself sitting in the crosshairs of a spiritual attack, you don't have time to kind of wade around defensively. Today we're sharing three direct offensive strategies you can use. First, the shadow principle.
Why focusing on the darkness or perhaps over analyzing the attack actually feeds the enemy and magnifies his presence in your room and what to do instead. Second, the three step Lifeline prayer.
The exact three questions you can vocally ask God to instantly break emotional paralysis and discern if a heavy feeling belongs to you.
And third, the authority checklist, how to receive an immediate custom list from the Holy Spirit, showing you whether to cast out, repent, or summon angelic guards. God has given you an exact dual command for these exact moments in James chapter 4, verse 7, where it says submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Notice the order. First we intentionally align our faces with God. Then we resist the devil and he flees from us, we can actively fight back.
Psalm 34:4 promises that when we cry out, the Lord God delivers us from all our fears.
Now Bonnie is going to dive into this first principle, the danger of focusing on the shadows, about how it's easy to amplify the adversary's power by simply staring at the shadows and what to do instead.
Bonnie Randall
00:02:38.650 - 00:03:35.270
I say a spiritual attack can feel like so many different things. It can feel like fear. That's one's pretty obvious. I have a Ever since I was a little girl, I've been afraid of the dark.
And I have to remind myself when I'm walking down a dark hallway or I enter into a bathroom or something like that, that the enemy has no power. He only has the power that I give him. And so if I listen to that fear and I start to see the Shadows or whatever, what happens? They grow.
Any little kid can tell you that if they recognize a boogeyman in the corner, he gets bigger. And that's exactly what happens when we recognize a spiritual attack and we focus on it.
If we give it the attention that it's seeking, it grows and it becomes more amplified.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:03:36.230 - 00:03:59.700
So to stop magnifying the shadows, we have to pivot our focus entirely towards God's protocol of healing and progression. Bonnie now is going to map out the exact questions. You can pray, to discern your source of distress and give us this three step lifeline prayer.
And then what to listen for so we'll know how to proceed forward.
Bonnie Randall
00:04:00.580 - 00:08:36.430
God is a God of progression. He is a God of healing. He is a God of hope. He is a God of faith.
So how do we combat those, those out of human range emotions with the opposite, with faith, with hope, with charity, with compassion, with truth. When we can see the situation through his eyes, through the eyes of truth, we can find a way forward.
We can find a path that takes us to healing, a path that fixes the situation. That is the most important thing to recognize is that the enemy wants us stuck. He wants us in a hole. He wants us covered and buried.
The Savior wants us whole. He wants us in harmony. He wants us to feel peace. And how do we have those emotions? It's through progression, it's through change.
That is why we are encouraged to repent. Repentance just means to turn your face towards God again. And we do that on the daily.
We do it every time we make a choice to progress, to heal, to move forward, to start again. That is using Christ in our lives.
I promise you that as you start to recognize your own emotions and you start to name them and you start to recognize, am I in a normal range right now?
And if you're struggling with that in the beginning, because we all do, I would suggest that when you're hyped up and you're feeling something, you stop and you say, what am I feeling? It's this. Is that normal? I can't tell right now. Say a prayer. Dear God, dear Jesus, dear Lord, whatever you like to call him. Okay.
Dear Savior, is this mine? Is this emotion mine? Yes or no? Yes. Is it in the normal range of emotions? Yes. Okay. How can I feel better? Because I don't really like being sad.
I don't really like being anger angry. What can I do? He's probably going to tell you to go drink some water or do something, right? Go read a Bible, go call a friend Whatever.
He's going to give you a lifeline. Okay? Now, if the answer is no, this is not your emotion. No.
It is out of the range of normal emotions, you can then say, what do I need to do to combat this? Do I need to cast Satan out of my midst? Do I need to command him to go? Because we know that he will flee at the name of Jesus. Right?
We have been promised. Do I just need to say, continue praying? Do I need to repent of something? Do I need to ask for forgiveness from somebody? Did I harm someone?
Did someone harm me? Right, you're going to ask. Start asking some questions about how do I come back into normal range. And he's going to start giving you some answers.
And those answers might look like, get help.
Call your pastor, call your reverend, call a friend, look to this scripture in the Bible, get on your knees right now and invite holy angels into your house and cast Satan out of your midst. You need to repent because you just did such and such to so and so. Right? He's going to give you a list and he will tell you how to proceed.
I promise you that when you go to him with pure intent, remember intention to do what he says to do. When we go to him in that kind of prayer, he will give us an answer and he will lead you to greener pastures. He will lead you to light.
He will lead you to peace and harmony and to joy, sisters. He wants you to have joy. He wants that for you. I want that for you. And the way we get that is through repentance.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:08:38.080 - 00:10:14.890
Well, my friend, when you actively turn back and face the light, the enemy has no ground to be in your presence.
You are a guardian of your fortress and you can stand in that light to help give you several more hacks beside these amazing tips that Bonnie has given you today that you can use when the enemy comes knocking, I encourage you to go download our free A Mother's Spiritual Defense Guide. Six Empowering steps to Fortify Home and and you can get that free at the link below.
Inside this blueprint, I encourage you to open up to step number four, which is cast out and calm down.
And right there we have written out the exact authoritative prayer template you can use to command the spirits of fear and shame, discouragement, depression, to depart from your household. And then what you can do to calm down and recenter yourself and bring in light and joy and peace in the name of Jesus Christ.
So, my sister, stand your ground. Use these powerful principles. Focus on the light, which is Jesus Christ.
Invite him into your battles to know what you specifically need to do to escape this terrible attack you're facing. You're not alone in the battle. Stand by God 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.
