War Games...

Hello again, Blog Framily!  I trust that everyone had a wonderful weekend and that all of the mothers and grandmothers had an amazing Mother's Day!  Me?  Well, mine was certainly eventful... I went to church, took my mom out to lunch and came home to yard work before helping the Tween with her science fair board.  Finally, I got to collapse just before midnight.  Happy Mother's Day to me!!!

I hope that you got something out of last week's postings; I challenged myself to post every day and I must tell you, it's hard.  My hat is off to those bloggers who post every day; it is more than a notion!  You have to be very disciplined and have set-aside time to write (which is constantly an issue in my busy little world...).  But, I rose to the challenge and persevered - success of perseverance!

So yesterday (Monday) I toyed around with what I wanted to start this week with and something had popped into my mind earlier and I kept playing around with it in my mind but nothing was concrete yet.  When I got to class and we started talking about the lesson, "When Trouble Comes," and the ensuing discussion, it was confirmation of what I had thought about earlier and I had to rush home so I could start writing.  Now hopefully this will flow and make some coherent sense, because I am SLEEPY!  But, I'm going to try my best to get it finished in one sitting (which I did not...).  No sermon today, just my own thoughts and reflections, so pray my strength...

When we think about war, we immediately get images of military tanks, soldiers carrying guns while wearing camouflage, spies, and things of that nature.  Indeed, war is defined as the state of armed conflict between societies, generally characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction and usually high mortality.  By way of example, political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will based on hostile intent. Political warfare's coercive nature leads to weakening or destroying an opponent's political, social or societal will and forcing a course of action favorable to a state's interest.  It may be combined with violence, economic pressure, subversion and diplomacy but its chief aspect is the use of words, images and ideas.  The ultimate goal is to alter an opponent's opinions and actions in favor of one state's interest without using military power.  And finally, war games are defined as a simulation of a proposed plan of action or a strategy, intended to test its validity when challenged.  War games.  I'm sure that most people think of war games in terms of video games that simulate war, or civil war reenactments.    

Regardless of how you view war, whether political, game or otherwise, I have but one question:  Are you ready for war???? 

This cute little guy is geared up for a fight in his camouflage, his slingshot and looks like a snack in his other hand.

But what about you – are you ready for a fight???

Our class lesson centered on the story of Job.  Now, unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard of Job:  the righteous man who was very prosperous and upon whom God allowed Satan to inflict tragedies and great loss after Satan declared that Job only served God because of all He had given him.  So as the story goes, Job lost all of his riches, all of his children and then his health.  See Job 1-2. His own wife told him to curse God and die.  His friends figured that he must have done something wrong because all of those bad things couldn’t and wouldn’t happen to a good person.  Job himself began to curse his very existence and begged for death.  Yet he never cursed God for his predicament.  He did, however, question God as to why all of this had happened.  And guess what?  God answered!  Don’t believe me?  Check it out for yourself in Job 38-41.  Now, not a straightforward answer, but more like a reminder of who God was.  And Job felt small, so very small and withdrew his questions (Job 42).  And because of his faithfulness, even in the midst of his storms, God restored double what Job had before.  One of the greatest lessons in the Bible on staying faithful to God even when things don’t look good or like they are working in your favor!

So in our discussion about the lesson, one of my classmates made a point that I thought critical to this topic:  your praying, fasting, attending church and building up your spiritual life is boot camp, and when the storms of life comes (war/battle), that’s when you have to put into action what you have practiced for.  Let’s just let that marinate for just a moment.

My ex-husband and a few cousins were all military men (Army and Marines).  Different branches of the armed forces, but the process was still the same:  their military training all began with boot camp.  Boot camp is where civilians are turned into soldiers.  They have an extremely regimented schedule with very strict diet, exercise, bedtimes, rising times, cleaning and military training and exercises, all designed to transform them into soldiers.  They learn to put together and take apart weapons in a set amount of time; they run obstacle courses while carrying weighted bags; they learn to shoot properly and identify the difference between targets and civilians in the blink of an eye; they learn to survive on the bare necessities (I forgot what those freeze dried meals were called, my ex-husband sent me some once while he was away just so I could see what it was – I settled on the word disgusting to sum it up, but I digress).  But when boot camp is over, they graduate, signaling that they are ready to move to the next phase.  Sometimes, and probably more often now than back when my loved ones were in the military, they leave boot camp and get sent into war.  There they are expected to put their training into action without hesitation; it is their duty.

And so it is with us.  Praying, fasting, reading scripture, going to Sunday School and bible class, attending church, taking spiritual development classes, working in ministry, discipling others – those are all parts of boot camp, Christian boot camp, that is.  And just like the soldiers who train in boot camp and then leave prepared for war, so it is with us.  War is not pretty; I don’t think I’ve ever heard of “pretty” warfare.  War is pain, weakening, loss, pressure, sometimes violence – you get the idea.  None of that is pretty stuff.  And the thing is, just like the soldiers in the military, as soldiers in God’s army, we are to use our training and tools to survive the war.  Ouch.

I say ouch because I have to be the absolute WORST soldier in God’s army to ever live!  I can’t speak for anyone else, but only for me.  And maybe you’ve all been good little soldiers your whole little lives, but that ain’t me!  This is about it all goes in my world:  I’m going along, minding my own business and things are going good.  Then something bad happens.  I pause, but don’t skip too many steps.  Then another bad thing happens (sometimes that’s it, other times, there have been 2-3 or more things coming at me at once; a full out war!).  As soon as the onslaught of war starts, I would usually be found crying, complaining and frankly, just ill-prepared for battle.  I mean all of my training went completely out of the window and I floundered.  When that happened, I usually ended up taking a lot of hard hits.  Those hard hits manifested as depression, despair, hopelessness, solitude – you get the idea.  Just like military soldiers on the battlefield who get injured (or injure others) when they forget their training.  But then on the flip side, eventually the captain was able to get a message to me (usually in the form of wise counsel from a friend) that made me turn back to the tools of my training (whether that was studying scripture, reading encouraging books, attending church, however it happened at the time) and I had to go back into training again.  Let me say this though, it’s much harder to train (or re-train) in the midst of a battle; it’s almost always better if you have the training done before the battle comes.  Being unprepared and making mistakes can be costly in war – the same applies in our lives.

Scripture tells us to put on the whole armor of God so that we may be able to take a stand and withstand the devil’s schemes (war games).  See Ephesians 6:10-18.  I can’t tell you that the battles won’t come, because they will.  And they will come stronger and harder when you decide to walk this faith walk.  See, while you are out in the world, the devil could care less what you are doing because you are not a threat.  But the moment that you make that decision, you had better get your weight up and get to training, because war is surely coming your way.  And sometimes the hardest thing to remember when you are in battle is your training because you are in pain, you’re lonely, you’re heartbroken and you just want it to stop.  But you can’t stop – stopping won’t win the war.  It’s human to feel those things, but you can’t stay there too long.  I know, because I’ve been guilty of staying there too long and almost giving up the battle.  But the captain spoke to me, and so here I am, still fighting.

What am I saying here?  That trouble will come, but it won’t last always.  I can’t remember where I read this before, but there is a quote that says something to the effect of: at any given moment in life, you are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to enter a storm.  There’s always a storm.  But what you have to do is be prepared.  When the weather forecast says rain, you take an umbrella.  If it says cold and snow, you wear your winter gear.  And so it must be in your faith walk as well.  When the storm starts a’ brewing (or the battle starts), start getting making sure you are ready.  That may look like extra praying time, fasting, getting your prayer circle together, journaling, taking classes, loading up your gospel playlist -whatever it looks like in your life.  And when you find yourself in the midst of battle, cling to God, His faithfulness and His promises.  (I’m going to write about the benefits of keeping a prayer journal in another post, but that is an excellent way to survive the battle). 

Now you know I can’t end this post without a song, right?  Anything less is uncivilized!  So let’s do this one, from Pastor Charles Jenkins and Fellowship:  War.

I hope I’ve done the story of Job justice; I ask you again – Are you ready for war??? Holla @ Darvi, and let me know what tools you keep in your arsenal for when you find yourself in battle.  As always, thanks for reading and be blessed.  xoxoxo