Combat

What does combat look like? 

As a country we have watched numerous young men and women trek off to fight a war half way across the world.  We know those soldiers are trained.  Many have trained for many years, some have had lots of training recently.  We send them off with the tools they need to do their job, whether that is communications (with phones, radio, computers), or pilots (with helicopters or airplanes), Infantry (with weapons and well, weapons).  Anyway, you get my point.

I have been in combat the last few days.  Unexpected Combat.

And last night, as I was thinking about how I have been handling this combat, I realized a few things. 

One, God has been preparing me for this battle for some time.  One way has been scripture memorization.  I started out the year strong, I was adding a verse each 15 days to work on.  Then I stumbled, a few times, finally fell and well, there went my plan.  But lately, God has helped me make it a priority again.  So the kids and I are adding scripture every day – we are memorizing together and I am loving it.  So when I battle started, and Satan came along filling my head with lies, fears, and so on, I simply recalled any and every verse I could.  Many did not pertain directly to this battle, but they filled my mind with truth instead of lies.

I can honestly tell you it was crazy to lay there and feel the old thoughts creep into my mind and I would just stop them and recall a verse.  As soon as I would do that, another thought would creep back in, and so it went for a while, until one of gave up – not sure who but sleep arrived and the battle paused.

It has to be intentional, otherwise we give in to those fears and thoughts.  We listen to them, they give life to new ones and before we know it we are plagued with irrational fears and thoughts and then we change how to act because of what we start to believe.  Does that make sense?  We start to give weight to those fears and it eats away at our faith in God and who he is and what he can do.

And as I think about how God was working the soil of my heart and putting truth there to take root, he was preparing me for these past days, and the days to come.  I have not looked at these particular verses thinking, wow I am going to need this one next week – I just wanted to put his words into my heart.

Another way is that I have been more diligent in my prayer life in the past couple months.  I have been trying to pray daily for many who are in my life.  And that has helped as well, to lay a framework for a change heart in my.  I always heard to pray for your enemies because it is hard to stay upset with someone you are truly praying for, and I think I am finally believing it.

Battle is exhausting though.  

My battles usually wage at night. 

That has always been my story – Satan creeps in with the dark and finds  a spot to speak lies into my mind while the light is away for the night.  But I have finally figured out how to wage a much fairer fight (for my sake) and that is by bringing REAL light into my darkness through his Word. 

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  John 1:5

So know that you may be training today, for a battle that you do not see on the horizon.  We need to be faithful during the times of peace in our life, in order to be equipped to fight when the battle is there.  If our soldiers were couch potatoes and then went off to war, the battle would not be a well prepared one.  Instead, they train, every day.  They establish good habits, every day.  And when the battle begins they do not have to think about what to do, they rely on those habits and that training and they are routinely successful! 

God is good, he is faithful.  And believe it or not, he fights many of our battles for us!  And another good reminder : our battle is not with other people.  Satan uses other people to attack us, but the root problem is SATAN – he is who we battle every day, not people.  Instead, let’s pray for those people and fight against Satan, and we will glorify our Lord through all we do!

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