Will you fight?
Opinions
I fought in a war today, and the funny thing is that nobody knows. You’re sitting on a battlefield where I have fought, bled, triumphed, and been defeated. But the thought that’s even crazier than the fact that you can’t see my scars is the fact that you’re in the same war and may not even know it.
We go about our daily lives and get so caught up in the trappings. We stress about homework, grades, paychecks, clothes and accessories. We walk around campus wondering what others may be thinking about us, or if the heroes in our favorite TV show have completed their missions. All the while we are blind to the carnage that surrounds us even as we walk to our classes on a sunny day.
I was talking to a friend a while back who was struggling with her decision to be a Christian. She said "I don’t get it! I’m trying to be more religious and live the way God wants, but it feels like everything bad has happened to me since I made that decision… I feel like I’m being punished for doing the right thing. At the same time I see my friends who chose to walk away from the church. I watch them get promotions at work and then go out every night to have fun… I didn’t think it would be this hard!" she exclaimed.
Unfortunately at that time in my life I was going through a similar situation and commiserated with her rather than encouraging her to trust in God. Since then my walk with Christ has lengthened, and through the ups and downs my relationship with him has deepened. I have been in the world and of the world, but when I step back onto the path that God has set before me, I see the world for what it is. The world is a battlefield and we are at war.
There are those who choose to live as if the war doesn’t exist. They think that if they don’t choose sides they’re safe either way. That’s what Satan wants us to think. Every person who doesn’t choose to accept Christ is another name that Satan gets to put on his list of casualties.
My friend wanted to know why she was getting hit so hard if she was doing the right thing. Satan knows the extent of God’s power. From the second a person chooses to accept Christ and pick up the cross, they become a threat to Satan’s plan. Knowing this would scare me to death if I did not also know that Christ will give me whatever it takes to make it through the blows Satan throws my way. I am so thankful to know that my God is not a God who calls us to choose him and then leaves us to fend for ourselves. Instead He gives us his armor and stands next to us in battle. I stand knowing that he will deflect the blows that I can’t handle.
We’re at war, but God’s on our side. Satan is hitting our generation extra hard. I look at the young people around me, including my friends and even myself. We often think that material things can bring us happiness. We try to fill the voids in our lives with things that can only momentarily cause us to forget the emptiness. We even believe that ignorance is bliss. But there are those who are fighting. Here at SWAU we’re fighting back with a Christian curriculum, we’re fighting with weeks of prayer, and we’re fighting with Bible study groups.
The war is on, the stakes are high, and the casualties are many. The question is; will you fight? My personal opinion is that being a Christian is sometimes easy, often hard, but always worth it.