― Charles H. Spurgeon
The Men in the white coats with the large red cross on the back are running every direction, we will call them Workers. They are a special breed of people called to assist in catastrophic events. One pushes a man in a wheel chair, his legs are missing. A small woman lies on the ground while two of the specially marked red cross workers try to stop the bleeding from her stomach and right arm. Injured people are everywhere calling out for help and the Workers try to get to everyone.
A man with a head injury wanders through the crowd in shock, walking past a child sitting on the curb, crying for his parents who seem to have abandoned him. Chaos. Trauma. Wounds. Bleeding. It's overwhelming to most, but the Workers seem to come against the chaos with an almost unspoken organization, a sense of teamwork and knowing what needs to be done. They prioritize, putting the severely injured ahead of the rest. Bandages are quickly wrapped around wounds and the Worker rushes to the next victim. Discarded bandage wrappers and cut away pieces of clothing lie everywhere. Who could have done this? Who is responsible?
You probably assume I am talking about the Boston Marathon bombing or the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, but this is every day life. The Bomber? The cause of these explosions? The enemy is the same. While rescue workers are searching for bodies in the rubble of the plant explosion, I am hearing cries for help in my own living room. This war is going on every day. Some days the punches the enemy throws are more severe than others.
It looks like a battle field, because it is. It is spiritual warfare. The injured and dying are every where. God calls, so we go. My first message this morning was from a friend suffering from severe chest pain and pressure. Stress? A heart attack? Call out the Workers and start praying. We first have to assess the problem and then apply prayer. What exactly is causing the pain? Where do we apply the pressure to a wound caused by the enemy? Sometimes we just have to ask for clarity and guidance.
The next is an overwhelmed Worker. Too many victims of the enemy's attack. Where do I start? How do I fight back? Pray. Encourage. Call for assistance from other warriors. Keep moving forward.
The next victim is a teenage boy with a head injury. Depression and PTSD. Apply prayer pressure to the wound. While he battles for his life, the enemy loves to poke at the wounds. So we call on angels to hold him back, break his grip, and help set this boy free.
Then an email, stating an injury to the liver. Cancer? Stress and anxiety for the testing that he will go through. Prayer, prayer, and more prayer. In the middle of scrambling from one victim to the next with a Bible in one hand, on my knees, surrounded by other warriors, the unexpected happens. I take a hit. The desire to tend to my own wounds and retreat from the battle is overwhelming. It hurts. But then God sends reinforcements. Friends, fellow soldiers, come to treat my wounds, while He restores my strength and I continue to pray for all the injured.
Yesterday was an ugly day. I saw the enemy attack in small ways and I saw him attack in big ways. A spear to the heart to some and a catastrophic explosion to others, taking out many. There was a time I would have retreated and spent many days off the battle field, but not this day. Why? Because I see every day like the day in Boston. I wake up every morning seeing explosions like that in Texas, all around me. The same enemy is attacking in every one of these events. The explosions that took place in the last two days are catastrophic and will injure many lives for a long time, but it is a reminder that we are in a battle. There are no civilians injured, because in the true war that is going on outside of the smaller picture we see on our TV's everyone is on a side. You may think that's unfair, but if you are not on the side of Christ, you are on the enemy's side.
What do we do? I watched a news reel of the explosion in Texas and it hit me. This stuff is playing on the TV all day and we watch it. We are glorifying the enemy. Every minute we sit in front of the screen groaning from the shock of the explosion, the enemy takes our attention off God. Some people even question where God was and why He didn't stop it. I would guess He is the same place He is everyday, while the enemy is attacking. He's weeping with the children of the man who took his own life, he's crying with the wife who just found out her husband is dying from cancer, he's weeping with the mother and father of a boy who is fighting depression. I have heard the enemy laugh and when we sit in front of the TV watching the same scenes over and over, not only is he laughing, but he claps his hands with every OH!, WHY? and groan that escapes our lips.
This reminds me of a war scene I watched last night on TV. I couldn't even tell you what was on, just a movie playing for back ground noise in a too quiet house. It was the civil war I believe and men were falling all over the battlefield from gun shot wounds. An occasional random explosion from cannons shot by the enemy took out more soldiers than just one bullet, but the dead were just as dead and the injured were just as devastated. The families mourned the same.
Who wants to look at life as a battle field? Who wants to spend each day in a war? Don't we want to enjoy our lives? Well, that's what eternity is for. Yes, God wants to fill us with joy here, but this is such a small piece of time. If you look back through history, wars had to be fought for freedom to be found. Those soldiers weren't just fighting for their own freedom, but for all of us. So, do we spread out a blanket and open up the picnic basket in the middle of the battlefield or do we fight? Do we wander off to pick flowers, because we are bored with fighting? People are suffering and they are dying all around us every single day, not just when the TV announces it.
We are called. We have been given the white garments. We have been handed the cross. If you don't want to walk through every day of life looking at it as war, that's fine, but what if Jesus didn't see it that way? What if He walked from the battlefield because he was tired of it? He promised He never would. The way I see it, He pulled us from the wreckage, restored us and then asked us to pull others to safety and tend to the wounded. We need to put on our jackets with the little red crosses and when the responsibility of wearing the cross on our backs gets too big, just remember the cross he wore on His.
No comments:
Post a Comment