spiritual warfare

The Battle Rages on

I have never really appreciated struggle. Well, some struggles can get me fired up. I’ll have to admit that when my Florida Gators rout a rival like LSU (something that hasn’t happened in a couple of years) I can get pretty excited.

No, the struggles I try to avoid with every fiber of my soul are of a very different kind – they take place deep down in my heart at the center of who I am. It’s the fight between my flesh and the spirit of God, I suppose. It is a battle that keeps me awake at night.

I would like to think that it is I who is doing the battling, but it’s more like a conflict, or a series of battles, that is taking place inside of me, independent of me. I am not really a participant, but I am much more than a spectator. In fact, when this war is being fought, it seems that it is being fought over me.

Who will control me?

Who will reign in my heart?

Who, or what, will be allowed to attach its name to me?I’m going through one of those wars right now. I guess it doesn’t matter what it’s about – not that I mind you knowing – but the fact that it is being waged is important, and I hate it!

Some people, as it turns out, are expert at masking the inner struggles that take place in their lives, or maybe they aren’t really struggling at all. Maybe they have conquered their flesh and made it submissive to the will of God. If so, I envy them, for I find myself in the midst of constant conflict of the kind that reeks of blood and carnage.

Just when I think that I’m on the right track, another round of mortar attacks explodes in my proximity. Bits of hot, spiritual flack protrude from my tender flesh. As I nurse my wounds, I am shelled again from the opposite direction. And at night, when all is quiet, and there is nothing to distract me from the ravages of the war, I come face-to-face with who I am.

Maybe you have never experienced this kind of battle, but it is gruesome. Conflicting thoughts bounce off the inside of my skull. I can almost see the tracers as demons fire at the things of God.

So what am I to make of all this?

At one time, I thought it was a sure sign that God had deserted me. Why would, I thought, a loving Father allow a child of his to endure such misery? I wouldn’t do that to one of my kids. Oh, I might have spanked them when I thought that they were engaged in behavior that had the potential to destroy them. I might have chastised them if they made decisions that would later prevent them from becoming all that they could and should be, but I would never allow them to suffer extreme suffering. Okay, maybe spanking did seem like extreme suffering to them, at the time, but as a more omniscient being, I always saw the bigger picture.

Take, for example, the time my son Zachary was playing with matches. The punishment I imposed upon him was, according to him, severe. It was painful. But I had seen firsthand what resulted when human flesh came in contact with fire. So I was willing for him to suffer the lesser pain of my discipline in order for him to avoid the greater pain of burning.

I don’t know the mind of God about every circumstance that comes my way, but I can tell you what I’ve been thinking about during this latest round of warfare. Maybe there is a bigger picture here for me to see. Maybe someone else has that same paternal instinct on my behalf that I have for my own children, only greater. The question is, what is the bigger picture than I should see?

As I said, I don’t have any way of knowing the specific mind of God in this regard, but I can tell you what is being impressed upon me right now. And that is this – if I am struggling with obedience in little things like spending money wisely or losing a few pounds, what of those who struggle with the really big things? My problems are common to many. We live in a society riddled with debt. for example. Our culture is overweight to the point that some health experts have declared fat to be a national epidemic. But our culture has labeled these behaviors as mere character flaws at worst.

Even in the evangelical Christian community, these behaviors would not raise an eyebrow in most places. But they are struggles of mine, and around them is centered my own personal war. And no one can trivialize my war; it is very real and its effect on me is profoundly negative.

And so I’ve been doing some thinking: If I find myself caught in the crossfire of a spiritual battle that seems to never end, if I struggle mightily reigning in my flesh in small matters, what of those who struggle with behaviors held in less regard than my own? Take, for example, the homosexual or the drug addict. In my own church family, others will gladly allow me the freedom to continue in my sin and remain an integral part of the family. No one shuns me or withdraws from me because I’m a few pounds overweight. In fact, many will placate me with statements like, “Well, you’re tall. You’re big-boned.”

But the addict?

Unlike me, partly because she bears an inordinate amount of guilt and shame and partly because I have been benevolently aloof and condescending toward her, she doesn’t enjoy the same fellowship as I. She just isn’t as respectable in her choice of sinful behavior as I am. Lucky for me I picked the good sins, right?

And so my struggle has led me to re-evaluate my own position before God. More specifically, my war has compelled me to re-evaluate my position before God relative to the repulsive and degraded people that have come my way over the years.

You see, the revelation is plain – while I was in open rebellion to my creator, while I was openly defiant toward almighty God, and while I was deliberately shaking my fist at the one who revealed his holy and specific will for my life after breathing into me the breath of life, that same almighty, creative God did something no one would expect the object of hate and utter rejection to do – he offered his body as a peace offering to me.

Perhaps even more striking is the fact that he took on flesh like mine in the first place. And in order to be like me, he had to give up what I had secretly wanted all my life – perfect paradise and communion with Him. He did what he did as if to say, “The breach in our relationship can be repaired – look what I’m doing to prove it!”

So how do I stand, relative to the worst among us, before God? The truth is, I stand before him for one reason – he picked me up, dusted the dirt of my rebellion off of my worthless, ungrateful flesh, and placed me in his presence. You see, I am able to be in his presence only because I am the object of his affection. There was nothing inherently good in me that warranted him doing anything for me other than to kill me on the spot and condemn me to eternal nothingness. Nothing, that is, except that he formed me out of the dirt and made me in his image.

Ironically, as it turns out, that is the same position the homosexual and the drug addict are in. The flaming drag queen who parades before God in open rebellion is loved by him in the same way that I am. This truth, I understand now, flies in the face of everything I thought I was, but it is true nonetheless. It does not complement me in the least except to say that I am loved by the one who, by speaking only a word, brought into being everything that is. It does not speak well of me or place me above or below any other human being. It only puts me in the presence of God, and for that, I should be a grateful and humbled man.

So what is the practical application if I have learned my lesson well?

Well, for one thing, I most certainly have not leaned my lesson well, I am sure. My flesh being what it is always cries out for self-justification. I want to be somebody in the eyes of other men. I want to matter in this world. No matter how hard I try to internalize both my mortality and my utter failure as a good and decent human being, I still revert to self-promotion.

Knowing this, however, does create an awareness I never had before. It does force me to pause and reflect on those ugly moments when I look down my nose at those “sinners.”

And hopefully, it will compel me to fall face down before the throne of grace in complete confidence that God will forgive me of my arrogance.

Gordon