When the Enemy Tries to End the Work: Recognizing Spiritual Warfare When God Is Moving

“Meanwhile, our enemies were saying, ‘Before they know what’s happening, we will swoop down on them and kill them and end their work.’” — Nehemiah 4:11 (NIV)

I saw a verse at church that really caught my attention: End their work. Those three words suddenly connected a year of my life.

For months, I had been looking at everything that happened to me as separate events. 

The blood clots were blood clots. 

The internal bleed was an internal bleed. 

Losing the farmers market was a disappointment. 

Sepsis was sepsis. 

The blockages were more medical emergencies. 

The delayed ileostomy reversal was another setback.

But sitting in church, I suddenly saw something clearly: there was a pattern. 

God would move. Resistance would come. God would use what happened to teach me, protect me, redirect me, or propel the work forward. And the work would continue. 

Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. And maybe after reading this, you will begin recognizing the pattern in your own life too.

What Is Spiritual Warfare?

Before I tell you what I began seeing in my journey, I want to make something clear: I do not believe every illness, disappointment, inconvenience, delay, or closed door is automatically a direct attack from the enemy. Scripture does not teach us to label everything difficult as demonic opposition. We live in a fallen world where bodies become sick, people make choices, and our own decisions have consequences. Sometimes a closed door is actually God’s protection; sometimes what feels like an interruption is His redirection. Spiritual discernment matters.

But Scripture also makes something else clear: spiritual opposition is real. 

Paul writes:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” — Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

When I looked backward at what happened around moments of obedience, testimony, Kingdom work, fear, and breakthrough, I began recognizing a pattern I had missed while I was living it. I also realized God had been training me long before I understood what was coming.

God Trained Me for the Battle Before I Knew What Was Coming

During my third chemotherapy treatment, I was finally strong enough to go to the infusion center alone. That alone was a victory. I had gone from being wheeled into my first treatment so weak that one of the nurses later admitted she wasn’t sure my body would survive, to sitting there noticeably stronger.

A woman near me noticed too. She asked about my improvement, and I told her who I believed deserved the credit: 

God. 

Then suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. The room erupted into medical chaos. Nurses rushed around her while chemotherapy was flowing into my own body. Fear hit me immediately: What if the same thing happened to me? I was alone, and my mind began racing.

Then something shifted. Instead of continuing to stare at what frightened me, I went into the bathroom and prayed for her. Within minutes, the chaos subsided. I understand that medical reactions have medical explanations, but spiritually, God used that experience to teach me something I would desperately need later: 

When fear attacks, run toward God. 

I didn’t know how many frightening situations were ahead of me, but God did. That early lesson became training.

When Fear Tried to Silence My Voice

Another lesson came during Bible study. Someone shared about struggling to forgive a person who had deeply hurt his family. I felt a very specific message placed on my heart: tell him that when he can genuinely pray for his enemy, he has truly forgiven him.

I didn’t say it; I was afraid to speak. Then I felt the prompting again. Still, I stayed quiet. A few minutes later, someone across the room spoke up and said essentially the exact thing that had been placed on my heart.

I went home feeling like I had failed. At the time, I was preparing to stand on the stage at my church and publicly share my testimony. Immediately the thoughts came: 

How are you ever going to stand on a stage and tell your story if you cannot even speak in a small Bible study?

But God used that experience to teach me something I have never forgotten: 

Do not allow fear to silence the message God has asked you to carry. 

My silence didn’t stop God’s message; He simply used someone else to deliver it.

Eventually, I did stand on that church stage. I spoke, I gave my testimony, and I discovered that the stage wasn’t the destination, it was training for a much larger assignment.

Fear can be very real without meaning that our faith has disappeared. I talk more about that distinction in my Fighting From Victory podcast episode, Does Having Fear Mean You Don't Have Faith?

The Red Bracelet and the Decision to Prepare for Life

There was another moment that changed something in me. I was back in the emergency room after an internal bleed when a doctor began looking through my previous records. He saw the woman I had been months earlier, the woman who had been expected to go home and die.

He looked at me and essentially asked what had happened. I told him the truth: I had known I was dying, and I had completely surrendered my life to God. That doctor told me he no longer saw the terminal patient described in those earlier records. Whether he was simply a doctor God placed in exactly the right room at exactly the right time, or an angel unaware to me, I will never know.

But then he addressed the red DNR bracelet I was still wearing. He told me he didn’t believe it was God’s plan for me anymore.

Something clicked. That bracelet belonged to the woman who had prepared to die. God was restoring my life, and it was time for me to start preparing to live. I removed it. I had absolutely no idea how much work God was preparing for me to do.

You can find this day in detail in the Fighting From Victory Devotional. It's day 111, titled The Angel in the ER

Learning to Hear God When Fear Is Screaming

Then my PICC line failed. About a week later, my arm became red, swollen, and painful. I went to the emergency room. The line was removed, and the doctors were preparing to discharge me.

Everything in me wanted to go home. But something inside me kept saying: 

Stay. 

I couldn’t explain it logically; I simply felt strongly that there was more to the story. So I stayed.

That decision led to another trial. The hospital was packed, and I was placed in a shared room. I was terrified of infection. People were coughing, alarms were sounding, and everything in me wanted my own clean, safe space. I wanted to leave. 

Again, God's voice was clear "stay".

The next morning, further testing revealed what had been missed:

There were two blood clots in my arm. 

Had I gone home when I was originally being discharged, I would have left with a dangerous DVT that had not yet been discovered. That hospital stay became one of the experiences that taught me how important it is to recognize God’s voice through fear. If you are struggling with that distinction, I go deeper into it in How to Know if God Is Speaking to You: 7 Biblical Ways to Discern His Voice.

Then came another crisis: I needed blood thinners because of the clot, and then I developed a massive internal bleed. Suddenly, there seemed to be danger on both sides. If the blood thinners were stopped, there was danger from the clot; if they continued, there was danger from the bleeding. Yet God carried me through both. The clot did not get the final word, the bleeding did not get the final word, and each crisis was teaching me to listen more closely and trust more deeply.

I didn’t know it then, but these were baby steps.

The assignments were still small and the lessons were personal. God was teaching me how to pray through fear, how to hear Him, how to obey Him, how to speak when I was afraid, and how to trust Him when circumstances made no sense. 

I would need every one of those lessons later, because as the assignment grew, so did the resistance.

God Was Planting Seeds Before I Knew I Was in the Valley

Months before I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, before Fighting From Victory existed, before there was a ministry, a website, a podcast, or any thought in my mind that God might use my story publicly, I was already struggling.

I was spending much of my time at home, feeling lost and searching for purpose. I remember asking God why I was here and what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I wanted something I could do from home, and during that season I began working with epoxy resin.

I thought I was starting a little business.

I made different pieces with Scripture and Christian encouragement, including resin flower vases filled with real dried flowers. I photographed them, advertised them online and offered to custom make them for people.

One of those vases contained a poem:

“Lord, why are you keeping me here?

My child, I'm planting seeds.

I'm a good God and I have a great plan.

Trust that I'm holding a watering can.

Someday you'll see flowers grow in the valley.”

At the time, I thought I was making that message for someone else.

I had absolutely no idea I was going to need it myself.

About three months later, my health completely crashed and I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. I came home from the hospital in a wheelchair to a medical bed in my bedroom after being told there was essentially nothing more the doctors could do for me. I had said goodbye to my husband and my daughter. I knew how close I was to death.

And there, in the room where I was fighting for my life, was one of those vases.

The thing I thought I had created to sell became something I needed to see.

Think about those words again:

“Lord, why are you keeping me here?”

That question suddenly meant something entirely different.

I had prayed one of the rawest prayers of my life, asking God that if He was taking me home, to please do it quickly, and if He was leaving me here, to heal me quickly because the suffering had become too great.

And months before I ever knew I would be in that position, I had placed these words inside a vase with my own hands:

“My child, I'm planting seeds.”

I cannot look back at that now without seeing God's preparation.

I thought I was making artwork.

God knew there was a valley ahead.

I thought I was creating something another person might buy.

God knew there would come a day when I would need those words sitting in my own bedroom, where I could see them again and again.

And perhaps the most beautiful part of the story is that I still had no idea how literal those words would eventually become.

“Someday you'll see flowers grow in the valley.”

I didn't know what those flowers would be. I didn't know what God was planting, what He was preparing, or why He had allowed me to create those words months before I would desperately need them.

All I knew was that something I thought I had created for someone else had somehow become a message God had prepared for me. I thought I was making a vase to sell.

God knew I was making something my future self would need in the valley.

And even then, I was only seeing the first part of what He had prepared that artwork for.

I Was Already Building in the Battle

God eventually gave me enough strength during chemotherapy to start creating again. I began making Christian resin art. I was accepted as a vendor at a farmers market, which gave me an opportunity to put Scripture and reminders of Jesus into people’s hands, talk to people about God, and encourage them. There I was in my driveway, literally using a power saw to build displays while a chemotherapy pump was attached to my chest.

And here is the part that gives me chills now: this wasn’t the first time Nehemiah 4 had intersected with my story. I wrote about that day in the Fighting From Victory Devotional and compared myself to the builders in Nehemiah 4, who worked while prepared for battle:

“Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other.” — Nehemiah 4:17 (NIV)

I was already building in the battle.

 I just hadn’t noticed verse 11 yet. I had seen the builders. Now God was showing me why the enemy wanted them stopped:

“End their work.”

When a Closed Door Was Actually Redirection

Not long after finally getting the farmers-market ministry started, I learned that Erbitux needed to be added to my chemotherapy. Interestingly, I had been watching my own bloodwork and felt something needed to change; I brought it to my oncologist, and Erbitux was added. But Erbitux came with its own side effects, including the need to be extremely careful about sun exposure.

My new ministry idea was outdoors, in Texas. I was devastated. I couldn’t understand it: Why would God give me this beautiful idea, give me enough strength to create all of this Christian artwork, open the door to the farmers market, and then seemingly allow it to be taken away almost immediately?

Only days later, another idea came:

Write the devotional.

Suddenly the closed door looked different. The farmers market required enormous physical effort from a body already going through chemotherapy. Writing could be done from home: I could write around treatment, I could stay out of the sun, and a book could eventually reach far more people than I ever could from one booth at a farmers market.

Then something else clicked: I finally understood why I had been documenting the miracles, lessons, hospital rooms, prayers, fear, and victories from the beginning.

I was supposed to put them somewhere.

The farmers market wasn’t the end of the assignment; it was preparation for the next one. Sometimes we become so focused on asking God to reopen a door that we don’t notice the larger door He is opening beside it.

The Violent Backlash of Victory

I began writing Fighting From Victory.

I wrote through chemotherapy.

Through appointments.

Through exhaustion.

Through recovery.

Eventually, the book wasn’t just an idea anymore; it was real. I sent the final information to my designer so the cover could be created, and the work was moving toward publication.

Then came some of the most violent months of my entire journey. I underwent Histotripsy on a roughly 6.5-centimeter tumor in my liver. That was an enormous victory: one of the greatest immediate threats to my life had been destroyed.

Then everything seemed to explode.

Two blood clots developed in my liver.

E. coli sepsis.

Excruciating pain.

Another prolonged hospitalization.

I eventually gave that season a name in Volume 2 of Fighting From Victory:

The Violent Backlash of Victory.

God carried me through it. I came home and kept working. The book was completely finished, I uploaded it to Amazon, and I was ready to publish.

Only eleven days after coming home, I was back in the hospital.

Severe pain.

Vomiting.

My rectal stent had failed.

Complete blockage.

Another surgery.

Then another E. coli sepsis infection.

There was even the possibility that I would wake from surgery with a colostomy if the surgeon couldn't successfully replace the stent.

Again, God carried me through. The stent was replaced, I survived the second sepsis infection, and the book still came out.

Fighting From Victory was published and became a #1 Amazon bestseller.

The work didn’t end; the battles became part of the testimony behind the work.

What Looked Like an Interruption Was Creating an Opening

At the time, I couldn’t understand any of it.

But the book still came out, the testimony still went public.

The work didn’t end.

Then God showed me something even bigger: those months of hospitalizations, infections, surgeries, and complications repeatedly forced me to remain off chemotherapy. Altogether, I was off treatment for approximately three and a half months. At the time, that terrified me.

Later, that interruption became part of the opening that allowed surgeons to do something I had once been told would never be possible:

They removed Ground Zero. 

The primary tumor in my colon was approximately 5.5 centimeters by then and resistant to chemotherapy. It had caused blockages, symptoms, surgeries, and enormous problems throughout my journey, and it was finally physically removed from my body. Something that once appeared impossible became possible.

This is one of the greatest lessons this journey has taught me: when something terrible happens, my first prayer can still be:

“God, please get me out of this.” 

There is nothing wrong with praying for deliverance. But now I have learned to ask something else too:

God, what are You doing here?

What are You teaching me?

What are You preparing me for?

Are You asking me to stand or move?

How can You use even this?

Sometimes God has graciously allowed me to look backward and understand; sometimes He hasn’t. Faith cannot require God to explain Himself every time. Sometimes He asks us to trust Him without ever giving us the entire explanation.

I wrote more about that struggle in How to Trust God When You Don't Understand His Plan.

The Ileostomy I Didn’t Want

I woke from my colon resection knowing Ground Zero was gone, but I also woke with something I had desperately hoped to avoid: an ileostomy. Another unexpected turn, another new thing to learn, and another part of my story I never would have chosen.

Even that served a purpose: the ileostomy protected the surgical area and allowed my body time to heal. My reversal surgery was scheduled for 1 week away. Then the cancer numbers began rising, and the reversal was postponed. My surgeon expected I would probably return in approximately six months. I was disappointed; I wanted to move forward, and instead, I was being told to wait.

But look at what happened during the waiting.

I Saw a Delay. God Saw Building Time.

Instead of spending that period recovering from another abdominal surgery, I built. My brother-in-law Ilai and I created MichellePinneo.org, yet another undeniable blessing from God. Having a member of my own family who can code, build websites beautifully, and was willing to do it all at no cost was a gift I could never take for granted.

From there, Fighting From Victory began developing into an actual ministry. 

Sponsor Hope began. Donations came in. Books began reaching people walking through cancer, oncology offices, and infusion centers. Prayer requests and testimonies started coming in. The journal grew. The podcast was born.

And then something else came full circle.

Remember all of that Christian resin artwork I had made for the farmers market? The artwork I thought I was supposed to use to share Jesus with people, only to watch that door close almost as soon as it opened?

It wasn't wasted either.

Some of those very pieces are now being sent alongside donated copies of Fighting From Victory to people walking through cancer and other incredibly difficult circumstances.

Something I once thought I was making to sell is now becoming a gift arriving at someone's door alongside a book I had not even written when I first began creating the artwork.

The artwork and the book, two things I once thought belonged to completely different chapters of my story, are now arriving together in the hands of strangers who need hope.

A small piece of Christian art may now sit beside someone's bed, on a desk, or somewhere they will see it every day and remember:

God sees me. God loves me. I am not walking through this valley alone.

The artwork was never wasted. Neither was the season I spent creating it. What looked like a little business idea that disappeared was waiting for a ministry that didn't exist yet.

And suddenly, the words I had placed inside that vase before my diagnosis carried an entirely new meaning:

“Someday you'll see flowers grow in the valley.”

The flowers really were growing.

Then the Door Suddenly Opened Again

Only days after my surgeon essentially told me, “I’ll see you in six months,” something incredible happened: my blood markers began dropping dramatically. Then my ctDNA result came back nondetectable. My oncologist was shocked by how dramatically and quickly the numbers had changed. Suddenly, the reversal door opened again, and I was released to move toward surgery much sooner than expected.

Another victory, another breakthrough.

Then, literally the next day, my ileostomy began malfunctioning badly enough that I may have to navigate significant fasting or dietary restriction until surgery. And yet even there, I could already see God’s hand of provision at work. First, He gave me time beforehand to regain weight and strengthen my body so I had the physical reserves I would need. But His provision went even deeper than that: God went before me and made sure I had the exact supplies I needed before I even knew I would need them.

When I had my surgery two months ago, the hospital sent me home with a variety of ostomy products that I didn’t know what to do with at the time, but for whatever reason, I kept them. When the malfunction started, I began researching online to figure out what was happening and how to manage it. It turned out I already had everything at home, every single specific product required to help me manage the issue had been sitting in my house waiting for me.

When I called the supplier to order more, my insurance wouldn’t cover it, but the representative on the phone told me she would simply send me four boxes of supplies completely free, far more than what I will need to carry me through to the operating table. What company just sends medical products for free like that? Thank God.

The following day, I discovered that one of my twenty-year-old implants had ruptured, another surgery, another unexpected problem. And this is where this article becomes different from the stories I just told you: I cannot tell you how these two stories end, because no, I can't see where the entire story finishes when I am currently living it out right now.

However, I do have this reversal surgery scheduled for two weeks from now. And because of the extra supplies and the abundance God has provided during this waiting period, I have plenty of extra ostomy products that I will happily bless someone else in need with once this surgery is behind me. That is one beautiful, tangible thing that came out of this delay: being positioned to bless someone else walking this road.

I Have Hope in the Things Not Yet Seen

Looking backward, I can see a pattern again and again:

God moves

Resistance comes

God redeems, redirects, protects, teaches, or propels the work forward.

But with these newest circumstances, I am standing between the second and third lines. I know what God did, I know what happened next.

I do not yet know how He is going to use it.

Maybe that is exactly where I needed to write this from, because faith is much easier to explain after you know the ending.

Hebrews 11:1 says:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” — Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

I have been blessed to look backward and understand so many things: I understand why losing the farmers market redirected me toward writing, what God taught me by keeping me in that hospital, how months away from chemotherapy eventually opened a surgical door, and how the delayed reversal gave me time to build the ministry.

Faith cannot depend on hindsight. This time I am choosing to trust God before I see the explanation. I have hope in the things not yet seen.

The Battle Is Bigger Than the Interruption

Maybe you’ve been so focused on asking God to remove the thing in front of you that you haven’t stopped to look at what is happening around it:

What were you doing before the resistance came?

What had God placed on your heart?

What fear is suddenly telling you to stop?

What are you being tempted to abandon?

And most importantly:

Has the work actually stopped, or is God teaching you to build differently?

Maybe you are looking at your circumstances individually, just as I did.

But what if you stepped backward and looked at the larger picture?

I am not suggesting that every painful event in your life is spiritual warfare. I am suggesting that you ask God for the discernment to recognize what you cannot see while you are standing in the middle of it. Sometimes what feels like an interruption may actually become redirection. Sometimes waiting becomes preparation. Sometimes the closed door moves us toward another assignment, and sometimes the battle teaches us how to use a weapon we will desperately need later. And sometimes we will not understand at all; that is where trust begins.

If fear is making it difficult to see clearly, learning How to Guard Your Mind According to the Bible can help you separate what is actually happening from what fear is predicting.

How Do You Respond to Spiritual Warfare?

If everything seems to have become harder after you stepped forward in obedience, don’t panic and immediately assume you misunderstood God:

1. Pray before you react.

Ask God for discernment

2. Guard your mind.

Fear loves to write endings God has not written.

3. Remember God's track record.

Look backward: Where has He carried you before? What once looked like a disaster but later became part of your testimony?

4. Stay close enough to God to recognize His direction.

Sometimes faith means moving, fighting, speaking, waiting, or becoming completely still until you know what God is asking you to do.

And finally:

Do not let the battle silence your testimony. Revelation 12:11 speaks of overcoming “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Your story may become the very thing someone else needs while walking through their own valley. My battles gave me a voice; the things that could have silenced me gave me more to say about the faithfulness of God.

The Work Didn’t End

That is what I finally saw sitting in church: the pattern wasn’t simply that hard things kept happening; the pattern was what happened after them.

Fear silenced me in Bible study.

God taught me to speak.

The DVT terrified me.

God taught me to listen.

I made a vase thinking it was for someone else.

God had prepared its message for me.

The farmers market closed.

The devotional was born.

Hospital rooms interrupted my plans.

They became pages.

Months away from treatments looked terrifying.

A tumor once considered inoperable was eventually removed.

The reversal was postponed.

A ministry was built.

Waiting became preparation.

Scars became testimony.

Interruption became redirection.

And the work continued.

That is why Nehemiah 4:11 hit me so differently this time.

“…kill them and end their work.”

At one point, I thought the big assignment God was preparing me for was standing on my church stage and sharing my testimony; I thought that was carrying the torch. I had no idea. 

I didn't know I would write Fighting From Victory, that it would become a bestseller, or that there would eventually be a ministry, website, Sponsor Hope, journal, podcast, community, books placed into the hands of people walking through their own battles, and a Hebrew translation being created so people in Israel could read about the miracles of Jesus in their own language.

And I still have no idea what God is going to do next.

Maybe you are looking at something in your life right now that seems small, interrupted, unfinished, or even wasted. I have learned to be careful about calling anything wasted while God is still writing the story.

I once made a flower vase thinking I was creating something to sell. Months later, its words were speaking to me in the valley. Later still, the artwork was traveling alongside books I had not yet written when I made it, through a ministry I could not have imagined.

Sometimes you don't recognize the seed while God is planting it.

Sometimes you don't understand the watering.

Sometimes you have to live through the valley before you finally see the flowers.

But I know this:

The work didn't end.

The attack may change how the work continues, a closed door may redirect it, a delay may change its timing, and a battle may change the person carrying it, but the enemy does not get to decide whether God’s purposes survive. God does.

Now I am standing in another unfinished chapter. I don’t know yet what God is going to do with the ileostomy complications or another surgery, and I don’t know what the next assignment looks like. But I have seen too much to believe I need all the answers before I trust Him.

So I will keep building, speaking, writing, serving, and carrying the torch. Long before I understood what was happening, I was already living Nehemiah 4: a tool in one hand, a weapon in the other, building while battling. When something tries to convince me that this will finally be the thing that ends the work, I can look backward at everything God has already done and remember: the work didn’t end then, and I have faith in what I cannot see yet.

I am not fighting to somehow earn a victory that may or may not come; Jesus already won the victory that matters most. I am fighting FROM victory.

Frequently Asked Questions About Spiritual Warfare

What is spiritual warfare according to the Bible?

Spiritual warfare is the biblical reality that Christians face opposition that is not merely physical or human. Ephesians 6:12 describes a struggle against spiritual forces of evil, while Ephesians 6:10–18 teaches believers to stand firm through God’s strength, truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, Scripture, and prayer.

What are signs of spiritual warfare?

Spiritual warfare can involve temptation, deception, fear, discouragement, division, distraction, or pressure to abandon what God has clearly asked you to do. However, every hardship should not automatically be labeled a spiritual attack. Biblical discernment requires prayer, Scripture, wisdom, and sensitivity to God’s direction.

Why can spiritual warfare happen after obedience?

Scripture contains many examples of opposition arising while God’s people were doing what He called them to do. Nehemiah faced increasing opposition while rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall. Difficulty following obedience does not automatically prove that a particular event is a spiritual attack, but opposition does not necessarily mean you misunderstood God’s direction either.

What should Christians do during spiritual warfare?

Pray before reacting, return to Scripture, guard your thoughts, remember God’s faithfulness, and ask Him for discernment about your next step. Ephesians 6:10–18 teaches Christians to stand firm in God’s strength and put on the full armor of God. Sometimes obedience means moving forward, and sometimes it means waiting until God’s direction becomes clear.