I recently found a note I wrote about some thoughts I had over a lunch break while sitting under a tree downtown watching people go by... I thought it interesting that God put this on my heart back then, and I just now found it because he has placed similar things on my heart again.
We're in a battle but don't know it. I can hear the battle cry, I see the casualties. I remember smalll glimpses here and there of forewarnings, but we're here. There are two battles that I am talking about. And the one foreshadows the other in such a glaring way. Our nation is at war, yet I never think about it - I don't see the blood, I'm not affected. I know and have the knowledge that people are really dying - and their families are suffering a great deal, but honestly I don't think about it too often. I only hear rumors. People say war is waging... but I don't hear it. It's so far away. Is it real? Others say, who cares...why are really fighting anyway? We have an enemy blatantly calling out our name yelling, "American, you christian...yes you... I hate you and I will kill you, but I won't stop there. I will teach my people, my children and their children to kill and hate you." - I see that... sort of, but its voice just isn't loud in my life... so I move on in my life.
This parallel to the greater battle going on is all too simialr. We are in a war, people are dying- I see the living dead all around me; those walking around with targets on their foreheads, myself included, yet the voice just doesn't seem to be very loud... so I move on with my life.
There is another person in the first battle worth mentioning... the soldier. The soldier is fully alert and attentive to the war being waged around him. He in fact heard about the war - and became alarmed. But he didn't stop there. He dressed for war and got involved. He became engaged. He knew that what he was hearing, even though he didn't see it, was true. He believed and knew in his heart that he was called to fight, not just for himself, but his children and their children. The soldier never allowed himself to fall asleep. He took up his responsibility and he did that because he was called and he knew it. In a soldier's mind he makes a decision to fight, but only because he already knows that he has greatness to give. He knows he is needed... and knows that there will be a battle lost if he doesn't fully engage.
2 Corinthians 10:3-7
Be fully alert and fully engage.
