Some of you will be disappointed when you finish this article. I was disappointed when I first thought about my battle to fight. I was imagining something akin to the Narnia stories or Star Wars when I was first introduced to the idea. I hoped that maybe when I started to realize and live my life like an epic story, all of a sudden I would be swept into crazy adventures more often. I would find myself in more perilous predicaments. But it was not so. Our battle is framed in a different way my friends. And at first, it is a little disappointing.
We are fighting against the mundane.
Not very climactic is it? What’s the point of believing I am in an epic story if all that is different is that I am not satisfied with the mundane life that I was living in? Where is the adventure in that? And if I am being completely honest; that is a hard question to answer. I pray that God lets me answer it well:
Our battle is against the mundane and mediocre because that is what kills our heart the most. I believe within all of us there is a great desire for beauty and adventure (thank you John Eldredge). Does everyday life scream at you of beauty and adventure? Do you wake up each morning thinking, “I can’t wait for today’s adventure” or, “Well, I’ve got to get through another day?” The everyday seems far from anything exciting. Why else would we call it the “everyday?” If we think that all we are destined for is an average life from now til the day we die, why wouldn’t we all be depressed? And when we start to believe it, a shroud comes over us. And we stagger our way through life just trying to get by.
Can’t you see why we must fight against this? My Lord, a single paragraph outlining it is enough to send someone into a nosedive of discouragement! When I say that we must fight it, you must also realize, I do not mean that we should pretend that we live in a fantasy world. I mean that we must realize that our lives carry a weight that would stagger most people if they would only see it! The mundane kills our hearts so effectively because it sends the message that we are not important, and that our lives don’t carry much weight. Fighting for the reality that we live in an epic story will allow us to take heart and know that our lives will make an impact if we let them. And so we must look at the start of all our stories.
Our first sin as humans was to distrust God. To think that he was withholding something from us. So we turned from him, and started striving to make our lives what we want them to be. In the process, we have turned from the source of purpose. The source of all beauty and adventure. We have created the mundane life that we are struggling against now. And here, we arrive at the crux of the battle: will we trust God again? Will we trust him to show us the weight of our lives, and bring us into it? Will we trust the author of our story? And while this is the turning point, it is only the beginning of the battle.
If we say yes, and cry out to our Father for the life that he has planned for us, we move toward who we were meant to be. And the Enemy will take notice, and react. Friends, I wish there was an easier way to find a life worth living. But there is not. We must fight against the Enemy if we are to truly find our life. And right here, I’ve lost a few of you.
Why do Christians rarely mention that there is an enemy bent on our destruction? I have a friend who never talks about it. He never faces the fact that evil is all around him because he says that if he does, “all it does is acknowledge that it has power.” How does not acknowledging it take any of its power away?! It doesn’t! It allows it to go unchecked! To not look at it or realize its reality is to think that it has more power than our Father! What a load of crap!
We can do something against this evil. We can choose the holy Trinity, which is choosing the winning side! By doing that we take away the ability for the Enemy to have control over our lives. If you doubt any of this, then answer this question: who was tempting Jesus in the desert? Was it simply a delusion that Jesus was having? Of course not! It was the enemy taking his opportunity to assault our Elder Brother. Furthermore, what did Jesus do during that attack? Did he say to himself, “You aren’t real Satan. If I ignore you you’ll go away eventually.” No! He fights him! He submits himself to God and resists the Evil One; and then the Enemy leaves him. We can live under this power if we would choose it. And we must choose it and pick up our swords if we want to find a life worth living! It is the only way. Trusting in the Trinity and picking up the sword to fight with them is the way to life.
And as we start to fight, that’s when we start to see the beauty and adventure in our lives. That’s when our lives carry the weight that they were meant to. But we need to know that the path that lies before us if we choose this is perilous. We will experience deep pain and hurt. Battle is rough. And it will take a toll on you. However, take heart my brothers and sisters. It is not all battle. This story that God is writing us into is filled with deeper and better joy than we could ever hope for. And as we get hit, remember that God is with us. He will bind up our wounds and heal them. Trust in him, and his love for you. And friends, every hurt and pain is worth it. Our goal that we are fighting for is better than we can ever imagine.
Next article: The End of the Long Road
*Disclaimer: While I feel like I did the best that I could to sum up all the information of battle, it would be best to keep in mind that this is not all there is to say or think about of the matter. This is a very complicated topic, and is very hard to sum up into a single article. If you have any questions at all on this matter, please comment on it! I would hate to think that something got severely miscommunicated, and would be willing to try and clear up anything that I can.
