Taking up arms

"The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battleground."

I am in the beginnings of Levi Lusko's sermon on Jude. He quotes Warren Wiersbie almost right away, making his point before he's even begun to preach.
This is a war.
And we are the army.

I was thinking about that this morning. At first, I was anything but humble. I imagined us, in our armor, with our weapons. And in my mind, goodness gracious, in my mind we were outfitted with it all. We were the ultimate warriors. With capable hands and countless skills. Calm and collected. Prepared and sure.
And then I imagined myself in there.
And it all fell apart.

You should know that I could probably kill someone. Quite easily. Maybe without hesitation. I've practiced for years. Learning how to kick, which strike to use, how much weight is needed to choke, how much pressure to break. I learned about my body. How it moves, feels, works. When it is most powerful and when it is weakest. I made it a goal years back to know myself, to understand my abilities as intimately as possible, to know what I am capable of. I still have more to learn, but today, right now, I claim with confidence that not only could I hurt someone, I could snatch their life away as well. I say that heavily. I understand the weight of that statement.
It's a little bit frightening.
I am a weapon. I am a warrior.

When I put myself in the army though, it suddenly looked pathetic. I made it somewhat less than before. Somehow, I did that. Me, the warrior. The one who knows herself and her abilities. The one who is actually capable.
And for good reason.
I am pitiful.
As are we all.

We are not an army of sure, strong soldiers. The truth is, we are an army of sinners saved by grace. We are a people who see ourselves as unworthy. We are only hope-filled by grace and forgiveness. We are a mess.

We are just a bunch of bondservants.

Do you see how laughable that is? I imagined us as a fierce band of brothers and sisters and comrades. With serious expressions and determined hearts and scarred, hardworking hands. Men and women who were lions. But then there was me.

I am just a girl who nailed her ear to a door as a promise to a man who died for me.
I am no fighter.
I am no lion.

But I am bought with a price. I am His. And that's enough.

In humility, I see God's army for what it truly is. A ragtag band of failures who found the light only by His sweet hand of guidance. Outfitted with love and righteousness and they all have holes in their ears as a mark of being owned. They look to be fools. Marked and broken and stained.

We are very unlikely.

But we must remember who we are by His power and blood. For by Him, the least of us will be the boldest and the bravest. The weakest will be the leaders. And those most scared will be the heartiest of fighters.

I love knowing about this war. I love even more that our God is a God of wonder and miracles.
He makes me worthy. He does the impossible. He is great. I am ever so thankful for that.

My coffee mornings and He dies every day

Today started slowly. I woke up early just to sit at my table and enjoy my coffee and finish Zechariah. I found myself writing small things about "moon-eyed lovers" and a tiny man no bigger than a pinky fingernail after I had mused on my carpenter and His fast approaching presence in my Bible. The New Testament is going to be so good. I can feel it in my bones.

I have become impatient. I swear it's this school year that has driven me to it. Just the idea that I am almost done, that the finish is within my grasp, it makes me squeeze my eyes shut so hard that they wrinkle in a way that might stay there forever. I don't mean to, but I just can't help it.
I apologize to my future self for the crow's feet.

But all that is not what I want to tell you.
What I really want to tell you, is that Jesus died for you. And if you already knew that, I just want to remind you of it.

Jesus died for you.

Is it bad that I feel like that's new to me everyday? I hope not, because it is. I can barely believe it. I have to grab for it every morning when I wake up. I have to let it settle every night. I have to remind myself of it. I cry. Weepy eyes + quiet sobs. Tears on the pages of my Bible. Laments pressed into the quilt my mother made me.
I can barely stand the thought anymore.
And yet,
it's my favorite thought.

It's that warrior part of my soul, the piece of my spirit that just cannot let go of the men of battle.
I promise you that only a fighter will capture my heart.

I think that we have made the cross into something unavailable, something irrelevant. We've made it hard to tell people the honest truth of the matter, and that's inexcusable. That's sad. That is is sad. The cross is undeniably one of the most important parts of the story. Without it, there is no story. Yet. Yet, when we stand there shivering in our own two legs and we try to tell it the way we know it, we can't relate it.
It seems like it doesn't fit anymore.
And God, it shouldn't be like that.

Calvary is relevant. The cross is relatable. And Jesus's death fits.
It just fits.
I need to tell you that. Because I know it seems like it doesn't, but it does. Even when you can't explain how horrible it was, even when you don't even understand the reality of what actually happened, even when you don't have the science to describe His broken heart, know that it fits. Know that your struggle for the right words and adjectives and the biting of your lip in nervousness will not take away from the truth of what happened. Ever or ever or ever.
Jesus died. It matters so much how it happened. Out of all the ways it could have. And it matters that we don't even do it like that anymore. That we don't kill people like that anymore. So keep that in mind.
Jesus died.
And He rose.

And that is enough.