Thoroughly Equipped (Part 3)
In the first & second articles in this series I wrote about a Special Forces A-Team that found itself amazingly outnumbered and out-gunned by an Iraqi infantry force. Just more than 30 Americans in Humvees took on about 150 well trained Iraqis in armored personnel carriers and T-55 main battle tanks. Most ordinary light infantry units that found themselves outnumbered over five to one and outgunned by such a heavy armored force would have turned and run. But Green Berets don’t like to run. This team in particular, from the 3rd Special Forces Group, had decided before the war began that they would never run from a fight, and they didn’t run from this one – despite the apparent odds (Information taken from Roughneck Nine-One, by Sgt. 1st Class Frank Antenori and Hans Halberstadt).
The way most believers have been led to understand the preparation for spiritual battles is actually a set up for frustration and failure. Despite urges in Scripture that we don’t “wrestle against flesh and blood,” or “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” most of us still feel like we’re supposed to be able to facedown the forces of darkness through our own grit and intensity. I know I’m guilty of this. The real tragedy is I used to teach other people to make the same mistakes I was making.
With my words I would say, “You don’t fight spiritual battles on your own,” but I didn’t really understand how you do engage in spiritual warfare. All my passion about the subject was just coming out as intensity. To the people listening it sounded like, “You can’t do this on your own! You have to pray super hard and you have to memorize lots of verses! You can never doubt and you can never say a negative word or you’ve just undone everything!” Basically telling people that they just had to try harder.
Here’s my new mantra: don’t try any harder. In fact don’t try at all. Here’s the key to fighting spiritual battles: Don’t fight them. If you haven’t read Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I encourage you go back and take a look at them.
Being thoroughly equipped for the trauma thrown at you in this life is truly about finding a place of rest in God’s love and care for you. Of course things will happen to us. We’ll make mistakes that cause us to become vulnerable, but mostly we simply live and move upon a fallen planet. It seems to me that the devil’s tactic is to pull a believer out from behind the safety and peace the cross. This might be common knowledge amongst this refined crowd of readers, but it might be worth writing too. The cross is the place of victory, not the empty grave. Colossians 2:15 states that the devil was disarmed, defeated and embarrassed in the cross. In John chapter 12 Jesus connects the judgment and sentencing of this world and this world’s ruler with being “lifted up” on the cross.
The reason I think this is an important point to clarify is that it changes the way we see our own desperate situations. Can we believe that God is still working things out according to the counsel of his own perfect will even when we feel completely forsaken by him? When these moments or hours or seasons of trauma hit our lives the darkness creeps in, taking the form of confusion. Why is this happening? Why would God allow this? Then, that same familiar but hideous voice starts providing you with answers too. You haven’t prayed enough. You’ve been making a lot of negative confessions lately. You don’t read your Bible enough.
So, if we start to believe that God is somehow against us and somehow behind the horrible things, we’ve been pulled from behind the cross. The cross says, “He was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement for our peace was upon him. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
If that scheme won’t work – you’ve come to far to start doubting at that level – the next trick is to get you fighting. That’s it! I’m going to beat this. I’ll fast until I get a breakthrough! I’m getting up at 5 AM to pray every day from now on! I’ll memorize the entire book of 1 Chronicles! You can’t stop me, devil!
If you start down that path, I think you’ll hear some familiar words of Jesus. “Put your sword in its place. All who live by the sword will die by the sword.” If Colossians 2:15 says that the devil has been “disarmed,” why would we allow ourselves to be drawn into a fight with him?
I wrote in Part 2 that our only thought should be rest. Jesus says, “Come to me.” I think our unconventional weapon against the confusion and the angst is authentic praise and worship. Authentic in the sense that it comes from our heart and from the reality of the horror we’re facing. I certainly don’t mean you should be able to whistle some peppy church choruses while your life is falling apart. Authentic worship can guttural – it’s visceral. Read the Psalms. The “man after God’s own heart” has no qualms about pouring it all out. There are plenty of David’s Psalms that are spleen.
My true inspiration for this comes from – expectedly – the cross. Think about Jesus’ words from Golgotha. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” “I’m thirsty!” “It is finished!” I’m just now beginning to see these words as worship – authentic worship. My encouragement is to be just as honest and vulnerable in the midst of your own suffering. God can handle it. The result is going to be rest – an overwhelming wave of peace and calm despite the chaos swirling around you. The voice of rest is praise and worship, authentic and from the heart.
Peace.
SJB
The way most believers have been led to understand the preparation for spiritual battles is actually a set up for frustration and failure. Despite urges in Scripture that we don’t “wrestle against flesh and blood,” or “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” most of us still feel like we’re supposed to be able to facedown the forces of darkness through our own grit and intensity. I know I’m guilty of this. The real tragedy is I used to teach other people to make the same mistakes I was making.
With my words I would say, “You don’t fight spiritual battles on your own,” but I didn’t really understand how you do engage in spiritual warfare. All my passion about the subject was just coming out as intensity. To the people listening it sounded like, “You can’t do this on your own! You have to pray super hard and you have to memorize lots of verses! You can never doubt and you can never say a negative word or you’ve just undone everything!” Basically telling people that they just had to try harder.
Here’s my new mantra: don’t try any harder. In fact don’t try at all. Here’s the key to fighting spiritual battles: Don’t fight them. If you haven’t read Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I encourage you go back and take a look at them.
Being thoroughly equipped for the trauma thrown at you in this life is truly about finding a place of rest in God’s love and care for you. Of course things will happen to us. We’ll make mistakes that cause us to become vulnerable, but mostly we simply live and move upon a fallen planet. It seems to me that the devil’s tactic is to pull a believer out from behind the safety and peace the cross. This might be common knowledge amongst this refined crowd of readers, but it might be worth writing too. The cross is the place of victory, not the empty grave. Colossians 2:15 states that the devil was disarmed, defeated and embarrassed in the cross. In John chapter 12 Jesus connects the judgment and sentencing of this world and this world’s ruler with being “lifted up” on the cross.
The reason I think this is an important point to clarify is that it changes the way we see our own desperate situations. Can we believe that God is still working things out according to the counsel of his own perfect will even when we feel completely forsaken by him? When these moments or hours or seasons of trauma hit our lives the darkness creeps in, taking the form of confusion. Why is this happening? Why would God allow this? Then, that same familiar but hideous voice starts providing you with answers too. You haven’t prayed enough. You’ve been making a lot of negative confessions lately. You don’t read your Bible enough.
So, if we start to believe that God is somehow against us and somehow behind the horrible things, we’ve been pulled from behind the cross. The cross says, “He was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement for our peace was upon him. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
If that scheme won’t work – you’ve come to far to start doubting at that level – the next trick is to get you fighting. That’s it! I’m going to beat this. I’ll fast until I get a breakthrough! I’m getting up at 5 AM to pray every day from now on! I’ll memorize the entire book of 1 Chronicles! You can’t stop me, devil!
If you start down that path, I think you’ll hear some familiar words of Jesus. “Put your sword in its place. All who live by the sword will die by the sword.” If Colossians 2:15 says that the devil has been “disarmed,” why would we allow ourselves to be drawn into a fight with him?
I wrote in Part 2 that our only thought should be rest. Jesus says, “Come to me.” I think our unconventional weapon against the confusion and the angst is authentic praise and worship. Authentic in the sense that it comes from our heart and from the reality of the horror we’re facing. I certainly don’t mean you should be able to whistle some peppy church choruses while your life is falling apart. Authentic worship can guttural – it’s visceral. Read the Psalms. The “man after God’s own heart” has no qualms about pouring it all out. There are plenty of David’s Psalms that are spleen.
My true inspiration for this comes from – expectedly – the cross. Think about Jesus’ words from Golgotha. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” “I’m thirsty!” “It is finished!” I’m just now beginning to see these words as worship – authentic worship. My encouragement is to be just as honest and vulnerable in the midst of your own suffering. God can handle it. The result is going to be rest – an overwhelming wave of peace and calm despite the chaos swirling around you. The voice of rest is praise and worship, authentic and from the heart.
Peace.
SJB
Scott Bane
2 Comments
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (2)
There are so many things in a day that challenge our rest and our ability to be at peace. I know I've been guilty of worrying a lot. I know I'm not supposed to, but until now I didn't know how to stop! This simple principle of "praise and worship." Just telling God what's going on in my heart of hearts has cured me of worry. I've had PLENTY to worry about recently, but instead I've just been telling the Lord about it. Just like the example of Jesus on the cross. My situation hasn't changed (yet), but I feel stress free! Maybe for the first time in my life.
Thanks!
This ministered a lot to me. It's not about doing. It's not about what we can do. What we can say. What we can whatever. It's intimacy. IN 2 ME C When we are intimate with someone we have a deep relationship that goes beyond fascades. We can be real with that person. We can allow them to touch us in places that no one else can. We can allow them to show us areas that are vulnerable. We can be who we are around them. If I am intimate with my husband he knows me better than anyone else. And when we become intimate with our creator, who knows us better than anyone else, the cool thing is, the hidden places are revealed and there is light in the darkness. God is a God of light. He said "Light be" and it was. All things that are not of Him are in darkness. How special it was to hear you say that the words Jesus spoke on the cross were worship. Thatwas a revelation to me...God needs to hear the cry of our hearts. To worship God with our pain and with our joy, with our love and with our weariness, with our attempts to please Him through works and with our true desire to allow ourselves to recieve from Him and not have to "do" anything at all. Thank you for shedding light in this article.