005 - Camp Counselor [feat. Demons]

Some believe.  Some don't.  This episode is a deep dive into the soul.  Not by me.  By something or someone way beyond this world.  Or is it closer than we care to think about?

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Episode 5: Camp Counselor feat. Demons

This podcast may contain sensitive subject matter to some audiences.  Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome everyone.  I am Bruce.  And this is Parallel Proof.  

This episode is going to be a polarizing one.  Some who listen love the stories and have a difficult time with the linking to the inspired word.  Select listeners don’t believe in God, and I respect that.  A few are iffy about the stories that may trigger some inner turmoil.  Many love both.  I realize this isn’t a podcast for everyone.  However, one thing you can absolutely be sure of, everything is true, recounted and told to the best of my ability.

For those of you listening who happen to know me at all, you’d probably say I am average, ordinary, and down to earth.  I feel I am pretty sane, and 100% a realist.  I am a glass half empty sort of guy, unfortunately, however, that allows me to prepare myself and be ready for whatever might go wrong.  I don’t like to be surprised in the negative.  Most would say I’m reasonable, logical, and decently intelligent enough.  I also usually tell it like it is.  I actually could use a bit of a thicker filter.  But whatever.  I say all that to preface my next story.  Many will believe it due to their faith.  Many may think I lost my mind for a brief period.  Whatever your thoughts on what I will share next, I can assure you I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in my rational mind, I saw and experienced what I did.   This is episode 5:  Camp Counselor feat. Demons

I was a pastor for 9 years prior to becoming a police officer.  Specifically a pastor to youth, both Jr and Sr High school students.  3 different churches.  2 in Ohio and one in California.  I grew up in a very strict religious home.  We would be at church no less than 3 times a week.  Sunday morning. Sunday night.  And every Wednesday night.  Without fail.  My parents hosted bible studies in our house and even allowed recovering addicts to live with me and my 4 siblings for months on end.  Don’t get me started on that one.  Let’s just say everything was about God and I mean EVERYTHING.  My Dad, and an elder of the church, held me up at the altar one night in the sanctuary, when I was not even a year old, and he prayed 2 things apparently.  One that I’d be taller than him.  2 that I’d be called by God himself into the full-time ministry.  Of course, he never told me this until after I came home from my sophomore year at a Christian liberal arts university, telling him I feel called to ministry, but I’m not sure I am and how do I know.  That’s when he spilled the tea about the altar convo with God.  That sealed it.  I felt called to ministry.  And Yes, I was 3 inches taller than my Dad.

I tell you all this for a reason.  Spirit and spirituality was ingrained in my psyche as a young boy through the college years.  I really do not think I had an authentic encounter with anything resembling the spirit realm ever in my life untilllllll I did.  To this day, I get full body chills talking about it.  And a tattoo to remind me of it every day.

During my stint at the Christian college, I felt the pull to make a difference in the lives of teenagers.  To be a voice of inspiration, reason, direction, and hope--- all under the shadow of the cross.  As luck would have it, or the orchestration of God, whichever, I had the opportunity present itself that, during the summer, I could intern under a youth pastor in Pasadena Tx.  This was a great chance to learn, practice, observe, and begin to lead.  I was asked right off the bat to perform the duties as an activities director at a week long camp where local churches would send their youth ministries.  You know, band camp without the band.  Church camp.  I was in charge of all the fun for the kids.  I had never done this before.  No pressure at all.  Haha.  Anyway, I got to be a counselor as well along with those duties.

One night after a long church service for teenagers, including a worship band and some preacher slingin heat from the pulpit, the evangelist asked for commitments from the camp goers.  You know, if they wanted more of God in their lives, raise your hand, step out, and make your way down to the altar.  Pray for more of the Spirit of God.  Repent.  Denounce the devil.  Be followers of Christ.  All of that.  The makeshift worship band playing on the stage, kids flocking down to the front.  Adult counselors standing nearby mumbling prayers in the background.  White noise to the ears.  Common.  Nothing out of the ordinary, until there was a startling commotion.

I have a difficult time fully explaining the next few moments, on into an hour long battle, moving into a two week long terror I couldn’t escape from.  Believe it’s real or not.  Call me crazy or not.  I was about to enter into a world I knew nothing about.  Scared would be an understatement.

As teenagers are piled down to the front of this outdoor pavilion, some praying, some raising their hands in worship, some singing, some with heads bowed, some on their knees.  As I was off to the side observing all of this, I saw a mid 40s greasy looking skinny camp counselor walk down toward the kids, and as it looked like he was about pray for one of the students, he lays his hand on the shoulder of a blonde haired 14 year old girl, and the moment he touched her, I had never seen a young person react as authoritative as I did.  This little girl whips around, faces him, and starts screaming at this greaseball and pointing at him.  “GET AWAY FROM ME!  DON’T TOUCH ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!  IN THE NAME OF JESUS!”

Although she herself did not touch this man, it looked like someone straight up front kicked him in the chest like Leonidas to the Persian in the movie 300.  “THIS IS SPARTA!”  This guy flies backward and lands on his back and he can’t move.  He is trying to get up and he CAN’T MOVE.  Meanwhile, girl is still yelling and pointing.  When I say it looked like there was something inside the man, I mean, it looked like there was something INSIDE the dudes chest.  As he is laying there with futile attempts to get himself to his feet, I swear on my life, his chest cavity appeared to have something or someone inside it.  His midsection and lung area looked twice its normal size and heaving.  I’m telling you, like something wanted to come out.  Not any particular shape, just-----something.

A few of us, 6 in total, including the rally speaker, had to drag this person to the medical office and lay him on the ground on his back.  He started to thrash around as his chest was blowing up housing what the hell ever.  Eyes were rolled back in his head.  He was making these sounds from deep within that were a combination of unintelligible words mixed with breaths like a satanic version of darth vader.  4 people held down his arms and legs, and I had to lovely duty to try and keep his head still.  I was kneeled at the top of his head, and I remember the evangelist attempting to command out the, what I’m assuming was an evil spirt, but to no avail.  I was waiting for this rush or blast of energy to come out something in the vein of the movie The Omen and blow back my hair breaking all the windows as it flew out.  All of this was scary enough ---until this demon went deep.

45 minutes into this barrage of prayer and struggling, he stops.  Heaving chest subsides.  Eyes come back to normal.  The trashing ends.  I see this face, and as God as my witness, I see his face literally contort before my very own eyes, it changes.  His head tilts down, he opens his mouth, and nothing, and I mean NOTHING  I have ever heard sounded like what I am about to hear.  It was as if the Devil had a voice and I am hearing him in the flesh.  A deep, guttural, dangerous, evil sounding being spoke “I am legion.  We are many.  You have no power.  I don’t know you.  Where is Jee, Jee, jee, jee. ----bring someone with power to set us free.  There are too many in here.”  And with that---------it ended.----Nothing----a retreat back and again into hiding.

Allow me to pause here.

I can for certainty say I lived the bible.  In Luke 8:26-33, I remember reading about Jesus stepping onshore and stepping on-scene into a confrontation with a demon possessed individual.  This naked host cried out at the top of his voice to the Son of God “what do you want from me?  Don’t torture me!”  I can just picture Jesus, full of all the power, calmly ask, “What is your name?”  And that’s when the evil spirits inside, those demonic kidnappers showing they were in control replied, “Legion.”  A vast multitude, evil great in numbers, had infiltrated the body and mind and soul. ---But---they were facing Jesus.  The Most High.  God in flesh.  And what does the Jesus do?  Commands the demons out and into a heard of nearby innocent pigs, that promptly rush down a steep bank, into a lake and drown themselves.

Nothing formed against me shall prosper.  Not in His name.

How strong is His name inside you or inside me?  How prevalent is the power and the spirit of God deep inside the fibers of who we are?  And how much do we want that, so others may see the glory of the Most High within us?

Conversely, Acts chapter 19:13-17 has 7 dudes going around the area trying to drive out the demons in people all while attempting to invoke the name of Jesus.  These charlatans would say, “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”  One day, one of the evil spirits answered back and said,”yo, Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”  Then demon dominated dude promptly jumps on all 7 of the guys, overpowers each one, and beats the living tar out of them.  These weaklings run out naked and bleeding humiliated with a lesson learned.  Haha wow.  This incident became known throughout the whole city, and residents were seized with fear.  The name of Jesus was held in high regard after that debacle.  

Back to my story.

My accommodations during my summer internship, was just about the scariest most intense place one could ever live.  A small apartment in an upstairs loft of the church I was interning at was set up for me to reside.  Noises in the darkness of night.  The air, thick and creepy.  It felt, every moment alone, like---I wasn’t alone.  I had just experienced the obvious evil at camp.  Now I’m back living in a petri dish of demonic and spiritual forces.  Call me whatever you’d like, I felt and sensed the war going on within the walls of that church.  And to be quite honest, I was scared.  I saw and heard a version of the Devil at that camp.  It had me downright terrified.  And trying to sleep in an upper room of a church had me petrified.

The one bedroom warzone allowed me to see out the bedroom door into the living room and lining the back wall was a picture window that overlooked the parking lot lit up by tall parking lot lamps.  A few weeks later with a constant pummeling of fright, every night replaying the events at camp in my brain, feeling the attacks on my beliefs and my faith in the Almighty God, I was laying in bed stricken with a completely real fear, that there was something somewhere someone about to attack me.  A spiritual, physical attack.  And I was frozen in panic.

I then saw it.  I know what I saw.  I am completely convinced I know what I saw.  There. Literally moving back and forth the length of the picture window, inside that apartment was a figure.  Not walking.  Floating.  A ghost-like appearance dressed in all black.  Moving back and forth.  Flowing, partly see through, partly not.  I was wide awake and absolutely coherent.  That being was-- and is now-- a tattoo representation on my upper right arm and shoulder blade, a guardian angel waiting for battle.  My guardian.  Standing watch.  Bad ass and so very much in charge.  I know what I saw.  The physical being was undeniable.  The proof to me that God was watching over me.  Present in the midst of evil all around.  A comfort and a proof.

Here’s my parallel

As an intern and activities director, I lived and completely experienced the bible.  I found myself in very presence of demonic forces and the stronghold they can inflict.  I witnessed the “7 Sons of Sceva” from Acts unable to exude the healing and freeing power able to be harnessed in any of us.  The Legion inside that camp counselor didn’t know us, was unaffected by us, and none of us had the full power and weight backed by the Son of God.  And I was seized with fear.  The reality of the spirit warfare was evident, beyond anything I could have ever conjured up.

But,--There is a God.  And it is written that He will command His angels concerning you to guard you carefully.  And He will fill you to the brim with His intense force.  In this world of day to day life, commonality, and routine, we are all still called to make a difference to those around us.  Great or small.  The story I shared is to remind me and to remind us all that, although life seems ordinary and at times monotonous, there is a corp against us, opposing the will of your calling.  Sure, probably not to the extreme I shared, but as powerful, as dangerous, and as evil nonetheless.  That hasn’t changed.  I can’t let even a minor strangling be a foothold that squelches the potential effectiveness of God’s name through me.  When I speak, when I combat any type of evil, when I am face to face with the opposition, I want whatever, or whomever to identify the Son of God within me, and ask, “what do you want with me?”  “Be Gone.” I say to myself and to you, Don’t be afraid.  He is with you and has your back in times of doubt and fear.  I’ve seen it.  Be filled with the fullness.

Well, thank you to the over 600 for being here and supporting this podcast.  A big shout out to the 10 downloads in Europe and the 3 downloads in Asia.  Whoever you are, let me know.  That’s pretty darn cool.  Please share this with all your acquaintances.  And I will see you here next week.