February 9th

Our struggle is not with flesh and blood

             Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:10-12

            There is a difference between our struggle and our life.  Our life is filled with responsibilities and challenges, the people and activities that we are committed to.  Our lives can be draining and daunting.  They can leave us tired and sore and questioning what tomorrow will bring, but they are not our struggle.

            Our struggle has an enemy, an intentionality that is focused on our destruction and defeat.  The battle is for our heart and our mind and our soul…and most of the time we do not even realize it is being waged.  Do we choose hope or do we choose despair?  Do we choose joy or do we choose bitterness?  Do we choose service or do we choose selfishness?  Every day we have hundreds of choices to make about who we belong to.

            Our children are not our struggle.  They are not the enemy that we must overcome.  They are the battleground for our internal war.  On the 100^th day in a row where I ask my son, “Are you wearing clean clothes and deodorant for school,” and he looks at me in a panic and runs to the bathroom, slamming doors and knocking things over and waking people up because he never expected to be asked to put on deodorant…a battle rages inside of me and I have a choice to make.  I can attack my son by yelling at him or shaming him, establishing my dominance and attempting to seize a sense of control of the situation and of my life.  Or I can choose patience and love by helping him clean up the mess he made and finding a way for him not to be surprised every day that he has to wear deodorant.  Perhaps we will write out a list of things to do before school that he can check off each day.  It involves more effort on my part and a realization that the circumstances of this life are not under my control, but it is also pouring myself out for the good of another which is the definition of love.

            Every day there are dozens and dozens of these small conflicts and choices that involve my kids or my wife or my coworkers or sometimes just me sitting by myself.  People are not the enemy.  Not the lazy ones or the aggressive ones or the annoying ones or the ones on the other side of the political spectrum.  Each of them has the same battles going on in their hearts and minds and most of them are ill-equipped to face those struggles.  Our external interactions with people are merely the consequences of our internal battles and choices.  If you want different interactions, then the internal choices need to be different in either you or them which means prayer is required.  Prayer is how we see and interact with the unseen realities.  It is how we survive and thrive in the midst of our daily struggle and how we can help others to do the same.

            Remember, our struggle is not with flesh and blood.  Not our children or their friends or the state or the uncompassionate or anyone else.  Our struggle is with spiritual powers who want nothing more than for us to be cut off from each other and from God and to give in to despair and bitterness and fear.

           

A moment to reflect:

Where is your struggle each day?  What steps could you make today to choose life in the face of that struggle?