THE SPIRIT OF VAGABOND

By Edwin Christiaan

The Bible story of Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy is very tragic. Soon after the slaying, God confronted him, saying: 

"What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth." 

Genesis 4:10-12 NKJV

Cain’s sin of murdering his brother caused a curse from God to come upon him. In the New Living Translation of the Bible, the curse that God spoke over Cain is being translated this way:

"No longer will it yield abundant crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless fugitive on the earth, constantly wandering from place to place." 

Genesis 4:12 NLT

When Cain was cursed with the spirit of a vagabond, it caused him to become a person who lives an irregular or aimlessly wandering life. The person goes from one place to the other with no fixed purpose, mission, or calling in life, restless in their spirit. Nothing they lay their hands on, works out. Their daily efforts only serve to survive and is not fruitful in the long run.

When people are operating under the influence of the vagabond spirit, their sinful lifestyle makes them wander from city to city, from house to house, from relationship to relationship, from marriage to marriage, from job to job, from church to church, and so on. Their lack of focus causes them to never settle down in the right place, relationship, calling, or job.

Someone with a vagabond spirit will be busy looking for an office job when they are really called to ministry, or bartending to survive when they really should be studying medicine and becoming a great doctor. When the Devil, who is the greatest vagabond himself (see Job 1:7) knows that you are in a wrong place, he will attack whatever you are doing and make you suffer. It doesn’t matter how far a person roams - he can travel around the world - he still won't be able to make headway and find rest.

The vagabond spirit is the one who is responsible for a person to fish and catch nothing in the sea of life. People, who are living under the vagabond spirit, are always tormented by the spirit of poverty, as this spirit makes them lose all the money they have or waste their investments. Nothing prospers. The vagabond spirit is not only an open door for poverty to come in, but it also leads to confusion, selfishness, inability to focus, mental issues, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, financial bondage, suicidal thoughts, broken families, deception, addiction, darkness, sorrow, and grief.

Another example in the Bible of how those operating under the vagabond spirit are not able to succeed in what they try to accomplish, is the story about a team of vagabond Jews (the term “Vagabond” Jews is found in The King James translation of Acts 19:13), who traveled from town to town making a living by claiming to heal people and drive out demons by way of other people’s power. They were impressed by the Apostle Paul, whose power to drive out demons came from God’s Holy Spirit, not from witchcraft, and was obviously more powerful than theirs. These cursed vagabond Jews went on to cast out an evil spirit of a possessed man using the name of Jesus without knowing Him personally, which led to devastating consequences for them.

"A team of Jews who were traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus. The incantation they used was this: "I command you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!" Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. But when they tried it on a man possessed by an evil spirit, the spirit replied, "I know Jesus, and I know Paul. But who are you?" And he leaped on them and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and badly injured." 

Acts 19:13-16 NLT

In Conclusion
Being impatient is part of the vagabond spirit because it causes you to go to and fro without waiting upon the Lord and seeking His will. They excuse themselves by saying things like, “The Lord said to me that I should keep moving.” But the question to them is: “Keep moving, into what exactly?”

If you have the vagabond spirit, it is time for you to give up your own selfish ways and come home to the Father who is lovingly waiting for you. Giving in to a lifestyle of living by God’s grace requires humility and surrender. The vagabond spirit is prideful and lets its ego lead. It resists God’s ways of guiding, and relies on what it can do for itself. 

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the young man impatiently demanded his inheritance money from his father up front, and went out to squander it all. He stubbornly carved out his own destiny, but in the end, he lived a cursed life as a vagabond begging for food.

To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: "A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, 'I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die.' So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.  

"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and took a trip to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money on wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him to feed his pigs. The boy became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.  

"When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, 'At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinnedagainst both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man." 

"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him."
Luke 15:11-20 NLT

Through repentance to God, you can break a vagabond curse over your life. Humbling yourself and turning from your own ways into a Spirit led lifestyle will break the power of the vagabond curse, so you can begin to live in God’s will, where you will experience God’s blessings flowing.