Battlefield reports on the news are a constant reminder that all is not well.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            In a time when so many of our young men and women are serving on battlefields far from home, it is still difficult for us to relate to the reasons and purposes being served.  It all seems so far away.  How can we begin to understand our place in a world filled with war when we do not physically see the battlefield?

I have heard preachers of many denominations speak about the battlefield being threefold.

They say it is in, around, and above us.  They say there is  a battle within, being our struggle with our sinful nature, a battle around us as we struggle against temptation, and a larger battlefield above us in the heavens where countless legions of those opposed to God and those loyal to Him battle to possess the souls of Christ’s church.   Some may simplify it and describe the struggle as being in mind, body, and spirit, but I have grown to see these as only three facets of a many faceted battlefield.

Our newscasters water it down for us, speaking of things like the “war in the middle east”,  but there are many wars in the middle east.  And there is not just  a war behind the war, but many wars behind and within each of these wars.   There are many dimensions to the struggle.  Nation against nation, power against power, riches against riches, politician against politician, religion against religion, race against race, even sect against sect and denomination against denomination!  Behind every concept of the battlefield we attempt to comprehend, there seems to lie another more sinister manipulation going on.  In truth, even those on foreign soil in the midst of the battlefield only glimpse at the surface of the real battle being fought.   How far we have wandered from the plans our God of peace (shalom) intended for us, but WHY?

The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians,

^“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)

The notes in the Life Application Study Bible expand on this verse with this explanation.

These who are not “flesh-and-blood enemies” are demons over whom the devil has control. They are not mere fantasies—they are very real. We face a powerful army whose goal is to defeat Christ’s church. When we believe in Christ, these beings become our enemies, and they try every device to turn us away from Him and back to sin. Although we are assured of victory, we must engage in the struggle until Christ returns, because Satan is constantly battling against all who are on the Lord’s side. We need supernatural power to defeat Satan, and God has provided this by giving us his Holy Spirit within us and his armor surrounding us. If you feel discouraged, remember Jesus’ words to Peter: “Upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it”

There has been an ever expanding allegory of countless struggles and wars since the fall of man in the garden of Eden.  Human history is riddled with countless battlefields and countless sinister plans, and we mere mortals have been the focal point of these struggles both as individuals like Job, Jonah, Anne Frank, Abraham Lincoln, and Adolf Hitler, and entire communities, races, and nationalities of people like the blacks, Jews, Freemasons, Kurds, Palestinians, and Christians.  We have been used and abused, wined and dined, fooled, tricked, enticed, endangered, and played against one another, as part of Satan’s campaign to convince God that we will fear, worship, and follow him in defiance of our Creator.  The underlying purpose of the chaos that surrounds us is to prove who we truly belong to.

Kahlil Gibran wrote in his 1923 book, The Prophet,

“Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.  Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody…

…Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows – then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”  And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, – then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.” And since you are a breath In God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.”

The battle that Gibran references is our struggle to find balance in a world of extremes, where the only true balance to be found is through faith that God has a plan and He is ultimately in control.

Prayer is our weapon, and yet prayer is our battle.  We are the battlefield, and yet we are also the prize.

Perhaps that is why faith can be so difficult for so many.  It often feels like we are in a no win situation.  Politicians will continue to lie, innocents will continue to die, injustice is evident all around us, the world economy is in utter chaos, personal relationships are abandoned in haste, and in spite of it all we are called by a holy God to look beyond all of that,  and to keep our eyes planted firmly on Jesus, knowing that we are victorious standing with Him.  When we are wearing the scars of the battlefield all over us, it is hard to believe God even though we profess to believe in Him, and the choice to do just that is the crucial differentiator that defines who we belong to.

If we belong to the world we will enter the battlefield with the weapons of the world, convinced that we are doing the will of God and fighting for His glory and honor.  But if we belong to Him, we will choose to believe God even when it seems absurd to do so.  We will do what He has instructed us to do.  We will study His word, strive to keep His commandments, and we will pray, even when we see no evidence that He has heard or answered.  We will confound the enemies of God by continuing to worship Him, giving all praise, honor, and glory to our Creator.

Blessings & Adventure,

Lynn “lynnibug” Rios

We are the battlefield, and the battlefield belongs to God.