A Warrior for Christ

"And when I fight, I will fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you."

     -Phil Wickham, from the song "Battle Belongs"

    This war was never mine to fight. I'm too docile and too gentle to be a warrior in the traditional sense. I hardly have a mean streak in my spirit at all. I'm more likely to talk someone to death than shoot them. Hell, I've fired a rifle only around 10 times in my entire life (and I wasn't the most impressive of marksman.)

     In all my years of fixating on all things warrior and warfare related, all the books, all the movies, all the games, I have to be frank and forthright with myself as well as everyone else I just wasn't cut out for it. It's good for me to admit that and be honest with myself.  It just wasn't my destiny. I get disheartened too easily, and violence just doesn't have the same appeal that it used to for me. I'm quite pacified.  

       I've fought a lot of battles in my life though, and some of them I didn't intend to be thrown in the middle of.  For one, I never intended to fall down the rabbit hole of obsession and mental illness. I still question my sanity routinely far more than I need to or probably should. That's been a war for me all in itself. I just wanted a life a little more normal and a little less uncomfortable than this one, but God has His reasons and His plans for all things in my life.

    For one, my journey through the insanity and the fear and the guilt and the anger brought me straight into the arms of the King of Existence. Jesus Himself is the only one strong enough and the only one sane enough to guide me through the maze and blackness of my life and this world. I would have never fallen in love with Jesus Christ like I did had I had an easier and more comfortable life. I love God more than I love myself, by a long shot.

      I always thought it was cheesy when I heard the concept of a "warrior for Christ" be brought to my attention. It just came across as too innocent and too "cute" to be legitimate. However, I found out just how powerful God's love can be. It is a weapon that can cut into a blackened and corrupt spirit and reach the heart of someone lost and bitter like myself. 

     I found out that fighting for a righteous cause with love and compassion can be just as effective of a weapon in the war against hate and evil than any bomb, bullet, or blade is. Even more so, as the war against evil is mental and spiritual to a much higher degree than physical, and you can't kill spirits or ideas with bombs, bullets, and blades. 

      For me, it is in my best interest to acknowledge that the battle belongs to God. It was never mine to fight, even though in a lot of ways I have been fighting it. When I fight my battles, I fight them in words and ideas, and I fight them by treating people well.  If you cut into the minds and hearts of people and instill a value of human life and a love for God and humanity as a whole, you don't need to fire weapons nearly as much. Hate, evil, and the ideas that cause such things can't be eliminated completely with bombs and bullets. 

They just recycle themselves and repackage themselves in a way that circumvents your defenses and appeals to a new audience. The only way to beat such things is with love and compassion. Evil can never destroy love entirely, no matter how pervasive or infectious the evil may become. 

  For me, I can be a warrior for Christ. Even in much of my anger and bitterness and my own struggle with hate, championing the love of the most compassionate being in all of existence is far more noble, and far less poisonous to the spirit, than laying waste to cities and civilizations. 

 

God never intended us to destroy ourselves like we do.

For me, being a warrior for Jesus means trying to restore a world where this darkness isn't as widespread and corrupting of the whole system is where the priority of my battling is.  

    I am learning as I get older that war is indeed a scourge of humanity, no matter how fascinating and intriguing the history of it may be. We don't need to destroy and pervert this world as much as we do. We don't need to cripple our species and our planet to the great extent that we have here. 

 Being a warrior for Christ means admitting this truth. We can arrange a world where our competitive and even predatory nature can be channeled and harnessed in a healthy and productive, and most importantly...safe way.   

    I have a competitive streak, a desire to fight an enemy and champion a cause and face and overcome a challenge, but I know to be true in my heart that you can do these things without the shedding of blood.  

    Even so, I've been human long enough to know that war and bloodshed will continue to happen until God lays the gavel down and just says "enough!!"  Until this happens, people will continue to die because of greed, hate, and selfishness. 

Being a warrior for Christ means resisting the temptation to partake in the dealing in death. 

Death itself being so antithetical in nature to an infinite and eternal Creator.