Skip to main content

Whose Battle Is It?

I woke up weary this morning. Not tired. Weary, emotionally weary. Strong emotions - both my own and those of others in my proximity - exhaust me, and the past two years have been full of them. I think it's catching up with me. My soul felt like an anvil as I pulled myself out of bed. I made my coffee, took my vitamins, and sat down to pray. I began by telling God about my weariness. It was accompanied by all the whining that goes along with that type of prayer. Then I opened my Bible. I read Psalm 35.

Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
Fight against those who fight against me.
2 Take hold of [a]buckler and shield
And rise up for my help.
3 Draw also the spear and [b]the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me;
Say to my soul, “I am your salvation." (NASB via Biblegateway.com)


I began to pray these verses, and as I did, my weariness became faith-instilled. The anvil broke lose. I recalled Jacob's fight with the angel that lasted all through the night. Jacob wouldn't let go until the angel had blessed him. Neither would I.

 How often do we "fight the good fight of faith" (1Tim 6:12) in our own strength?  How often do we "resist the devil (so that) he'll flee" (James 4:7) by our own might? We walk into our daily battles somehow believing that we're strong enough in and of ourselves. Even when we know we're not, we still do it - or at least, I do. 

 As I prayed these verses in Psalm 35, I realized that my part in the battlefield of daily life is to remain in Christ. My part is to depend on Him, to trust that this battle - today's battle - is the Lord's.

Comments

  1. AeronutMay 1, 2013 at 9:55 AM

    Thanks, Lori!! I feel weary often, and more often I forget I'm not battling life alone!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As A Child

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 Become like little children? Really? Children are definitely cute and innocent, but that pretty much covers the positive qualities. On the negative side, however, the list is quite a bit lengthier: demanding, dependent, self-centered, messy, often smelly, expensive, and embarrassingly honest. So why? WHY in the world would Jesus tell us to become like little children? WHY in the world would He want that? What was He thinking?! Well, He was a thirty-something year-old bachelor. Maybe He didn't really know what He was talking about when He said that. I mean, if we come to Him like little children, it's pretty much guaranteed to be messy. We're likely to be crabby, cranky. We might be downright angry. Prayer-ADD is hard to control on a good day. If we're not on top of it, if we don't have our list in front of us to focus our thoughts, we...
4 comments
Read more

The Hug That Said It All

I witnessed a hug the other day. Big deal, right? People see other people hug all the time. Yeah, but this was a hug that melted my heart. We attended a graduation party in honor of our nephew. It was held under a pavilion. There was quite a spread of food, and each table was loaded with decorations and favors (very nicely done, Ange!). Obviously a lot of work . . . a lot of love was poured into this party. As the evening wound down, many of us hung around to help clean up. That's the un-fun part of a party. The un-fun part of this party became even more un-fun when, in an attempt to dump a drum of trash into a plastic trash bag, wet, gooey, smelley garbage ended up on the concrete floor of the pavilion. It was rank and disgusting, but my sister-in-law (the afore mentioned "Ange.") cleaned up without complaint. When the graduate meandered by shortly thereafter, I jokingly told him, in a scolding voice, that he had better get down on his knees in gratitude for all his moth...
3 comments
Read more

More Than Enough

Life is teeming with reminders of our need for God. Take today for example: I'm exhausted. I have this ridiculously sensitive body rhythm, and I messed it up yesterday. I went to St. Louis with a mother and daughter. The daughter is strongly considering an extended stay in Burkina Faso as a missionary. So the mother/daughter team that have been there/done that spent the day with the mother/daughter team in the early stages of going there/doing that. It was a great time. Ami and I both enjoyed sharing our experiences, and by their own admission, the time was profitable for the other mother and daughter; but for me, to talk for a full eight hours is waaaayyy past my conversation limit. "Conversation limit?" Yep. Conversation limit. A previous boss used to cite some statistic about how many words an average woman speaks each day as compared to the average man. He'd see me talking and joke that I hadn't reached my quota for the day. My quota, however, is much lower ...
2 comments
Read more