The Good Fight

I knew a young girl once who was very firm in her conviction that she was definitely not a Christian. This was despite being raised by a Christian mother and even living on a missions base surrounded by people who were fervently following the Lord. I talked with her many times about her beliefs and was always put off with a defensive remark until  I finally figured out why she stopped believing in God.

From a young age this girl had been plagued by nightmares while filled with terror and anxiousness during the day. Having experienced some of these things throughout my life I knew she was describing attacks from the enemy, but because she lacked understanding she renounced her belief in God rather than fight. I was dumbfounded. She claimed the anxiety and nightmares had all ended though I had seen with my own eyes how crippled her spirit was. She was a recluse stripped of her true identity. She proclaimed proudly that she had the truth and since the attacks had stopped there was no God.

It was all I could do not to shake her and force sense into her head. “Of course they stopped,” I realized later “What army keeps attacking a city that has not only surrendered but changed sides?” (Because there are only two sides, with God and without. Satan is one who likes to make us think that things are “more complicated” than that.)

I so wish I could have thought of a way to illustrate this point to her sooner; to use the TV shows and movies she clung to to show her that, while the good guys may have it tough, it’s because they refuse to give in. They keep fighting no matter what. Just look at the Lord of the Rings or any number of the fantasy, adventure, and superhero stories out there.

Unfortunately after that conversation she shut us out entirely and I lost my chance to speak into her life, but now as the battle against Matias and I grows thicker I find myself thinking back to that conversation. It is easier for me to understand the desire for the fighting to stop, to be so tired that surrender sounds like a reprieve. I can name a few occasions in my life where I seriously thought it might be easier to lay down my weapons and just live “normally”; act as none of the spiritual or heavenly world existed.

Just writing those words now fills me with a fiery passion at how deceitful that way of thinking is! I’ve seen with my own eyes those who have surrendered and think they are free. They are unknowing prisoners, refusing to acknowledge the world outside the fence and instead holding the hand of the one who will be their executioner. It is in my most exhausted moments that this makes me keep fighting, for how can I put down my sword and shield when I know that will be my fate?

Instead we turn to our Heavenly Father for whom the battle is already won and ask for strength. We turn to you, our brothers and sisters who fight the good fight with us. We ask for your prayers and petition to continue to fight and fulfill the mission that our Lord has given us.

This post was originally published on our mission’s blog mandsarredondo.