People sometimes ask me about if I ever expected AIM to grow as it has and how did it happen? On a practical level, one of the keys has been the brilliant web programmers we have on staff. Our I.T. dept is amazing. Mike Price and Duane Shippy were at the top of their profession before they joined AIM staff. They are our secret weapons and have a server farm that hosts many sites other than AIM's.

Mike just wrote me the following email about the spam & viruses coming at us over the web:

We are CONSTANTLY under attack from hackers in every country: China, Russia, Pakistan, Philippines, etc. The latest was from Argentina. These guys are constantly trying to find ways to attack our sites. We paid $20K+ for an "intrusion prevention device" from IBM/ISS that came with a $2K/year maintenance fee. This is a "state of the art" intrusion prevention device. The not-so-funny thing is: 95% of our attacks are against AIM sites. I don't think this is a coincidence. These are spiritual attacks.

Of course, in the land of techno-ignorance that I live, I'm oblivious to bad guys and their viral schemes. Thanks to Mike and Duane, I almost never get spammed. And it made me think about the parallel to our spiritual lives. So many of us are bombarded by the enemy of our souls all the time. We walk around depressed, fearful, and stressed, saying to ourselves, "Oh well, I guess this is normal."

The irony is that we've been given all the spiritual protection we need. We've been given the authority to flip a switch and experience love, peace, patience, gentleness and self-control among other fruits of the spirit. We have the most amazing viral protection system, but we have to deploy it.

Many Christians are woefully ignorant about the way in which they've been targeted. If we could see in the spirit, we might see sulfur-smelling demonic shrapnel flying by us. This Present Darkness was a book that helped open the eyes of my heart to what we're up against. Nobody trained me in this stuff, but being a missionary, you see it more frequently. The African believers can't understand why we would stick our heads in the sand.

So just a reminder today: That anxiety or fear you're living with may be more than just your own negative thoughts. We'd do well to pay attention to spiritual reality.