When my family was young, one day I found my home in anguish. The children were complaining, one of them was ill, my wife was too, the mood in the home was gloomy, and I was depressed. I prayed for each individual’s recovery, but with no success.
Then I pondered Jesus’ instruction “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered” (Mark 3:27, New Revised Standard Version). I hadn’t bound the “strong man” yet; thus the continued suffering, I decided.
So, I changed the focus of my prayers. Instead of praying for the recovery of certain family members, I prayed to understand the wider truth of God’s ever-present and unassailable control over our home. God was the “strong man” of our home, I declared, not any suppositional malicious mind operating undercover. I better understood that evil had no place, power, or presence to occupy in our living quarters, and that God was the only influence over our collective health and well-being.
