War On: Fighting Brave

"We are in a war man! There's no time for stupid questions."- Mulan 

There are always doubts. We doubt because God, while he gets louder, is still invisible, because of the people questioning your sanity and the difficulty of just following a wild invisible God into uncomfortable spaces. We doubt because of the risk, the cost, the abandonment of rights and comforts, the disapproval of people you really love, and then on top of it all, because you have now officially picked a fight with the devil.

Yep. Fun.

The devil is real, and nothing ticks him off more than people waking up from the numb slumber he has crafted to keep us harmless. Zac and I were awake and running and single-mindedly chasing God, and that got the devil’s attention. We’ve served God long enough to experience attack. If fact, we came to expect it in the early years of church planting. Zac and I eventually would stop whatever irrational fight we were having and laugh, blame it on the devil, and call a truce. But we were in a new territory The devil stepped up his game.

In a matter of months, on top of all the new change coming and the weight of it all, we experienced:

       -the worst fights of our marriage;

       - friends betraying us;

       -one of our kids going through uncommon behavior issues at school;

       -out-of the-blue temptations that has never previously been issues;

       - our church going through more conflict than we had ever seen;

       -and other things that are not mine to share.

Every day Zac (when we weren’t fighting) would look at me and hug me and then would say, “Are we right with God?” If the answer was yes then he would ask, “Then how do we obey him in this new hard thing?”

And the answer was usually clear. Honestly, I could handle all the hard stuff until we were at odds with each other. Zac has been my rock in all this. I leaned on him to support me through the weighty calling on our lives. He and I were unified until this point. Losing that unity made me question everything. One night, I felt as if the attacks had come so hard for so many weeks that I locked myself in my bathroom not to cry…but to cuss. I WAS MAD! I punched the air as though the devil was so real I might hit him. And I begged God for reprieve.

“Do you see us? We are getting our butts kicked! Can you get in here, please, and issue some backup? We are dying!

We were pouring ourselves out and getting attacked from every side. I needed it to let up. I was losing perspective and I needed to breathe. I just had it out.

It should not surprise us if life is hard, especially if we love Jesus. We are at war—not in heaven. And yet it always does surprise us. When you truly are about the things of God, there is always attack.  

Jesus prayed for us, not that we would be kept from hardship or suffering but that we would be kept from the evil one who desires to take us out.

How many times have I kicked and pouted to God because life was not going how I wanted? How many times have I thought to myself, That is not fair!

While I may have read in my Bible that we are in a spiritual war, that truth had not fully adjusted my expectations of this life. To accept that life is supposed to be hard is the beginning of joy. There is freedom in understanding that heaven is coming and we are not there yet. We’re called to live, instead, aware that we are at war with a ruthless enemy who is trying to destroy us if we are living surrendered to Jesus.

But honestly, I think people are craving something bigger than comfort and an easy life…I think God wrote that into our souls. We are made for this bigger story…we were made to show the glory of God and to fight dark cosmic forces. We have one foot on the earth and one foot in heaven. We’re present here, not taken out of this world but living for another. We’re fighting for God’s glory and clinging to him for protection and guidance.

“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (Eph 6:11)

We are not fighting flesh and blood; we are fighting arrows launched at us by dark forces who want to annihilate us. It helped me be more able to forgive when I realized we never are really fighting people. My friends, my husband, they love God and love me, but the devil knows if I feel alone, unsafe with people in our church, unsafe at home with my husband, I quickly unravel. Again, it’s like the war in ‘Band of Brothers. They went through hell, but having each other made it bearable. Forgiveness becomes easier when I realize people are not my enemies.

See, God has bigger purposes in allowing us to suffer; bigger than just winning. He allows us to suffer because we change through suffering. We hurt with others better. We become humble. We want him more  (James 1:2-3). Honestly, we grow up through suffering. And most of us need to grow up. I’ve learned to quit wishing away the hard stuff, because I don’t want to miss all the good stuff that goes with it. 

[Excerpt from "Anything" By: Jennie Allen. Chapter 17: War On]