In spiritual warfare, slaying the dragons in your life that can harm you is one thing. But what about your “pet” dragons, habits or sins that many believers have kept with them since they were young, or for many, many years?
Missionary evangelist Daniel Kolenda says these are the “small sins” that have been coddled by many throughout their entire lives, ones that, like a baby python that grows to 14 to 15 feet long, could end up killing them later in life.
That’s why it’s crucial these problems or sins are noticed early in life so they don’t become insurmountable obstacles in your later years. Kolenda details that very issue in a chapter in his book, “Slaying Dragons: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Warfare” (Charisma House, 2020).
“You think about things like drug addiction, pornography addiction, alcoholism or just unfaithfulness in different areas—discipline problems or whatever it is—it’s some big dragon that you’re fighting with,” says Kolenda, president and CEO of Christ for all Nations ministry and the senior pastor of Nations Church in Orlando, Florida. Those things start out very small. And when they start, they very rarely seem to us to be the dragons that they ultimately become.”
In his book, Kolenda tells of the story he saw in a British newspaper of a man who bought a rock python and ironically named him “Tiny.” When he bought him at the pet shop, “Tiny” was a little snake that he could hold in one hand.
However, the snake grew to be 14 feet long and wound up killing the man in his sleep.
“I thought it was an interesting analogy that so very often, the things that end up killing people in the ends are pets that they have raised since they were very young,” Kolenda said. “When those things are very small, they don’t have power over those people. These people could have shut the door quickly; they could have dealt with those things.
“They could have repented; they could have cut them out of their lives in a very aggressive way. But instead, they said, ‘oh, this is not a very big deal. This is a small sin.’ So, they were very lenient with it. They coddled it, they didn’t pay much attention to it. But over time, those things began to grow, and they grow in such a way that one day you’ll say, ‘when did that happen?’ It happened in very small, slow, incremental steps. So slow, in fact, that very often you don’t even notice it happening.
“For a lot of people, even for believers, the big dragons they fight start out as small eggs. If you have a big dragon in your life, it may require a serious battle. But when I talk about killing your ‘pet’ dragon, it’s about those things that are not dragons yet, not big, daunting, overwhelming or insurmountable obstacles, but they might be in 20 years,” Kolenda adds.
When these issues are “pet” dragons, Kolenda says, is the time to destroy them. When you let them grow, you are also hindering the power of the Holy Spirit within you to operate in the fullness that God has for your purpose in life.
If that happens, you may actually be handicapping yourself.
“You could get them out, you could repent of them, you could be delivered of them very quickly and easily if you would take care of business today,” Kolenda says. “But if you wait and you let this thing drag out, you could be dealing with something that could destroy your life, and the lives of the people you love in the end.”
Click here for more of this fascinating interview with Daniel Kolenda. {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
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