Battle Ready

“If you don’t have to fight any battles than you don’t have to learn to trust.”

This is just one of the nuggets of wisdom that was injected directly into my soul the other day, when I listened to a message by Erwin McManus, the lead Pastor at Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. I was led there by a couple of posts I happened to see on social media about a "very important message" that McManus was going to preach this past Sunday. In the message, he told his church that he has been diagnosed with cancer. It is one of the most moving messages I have heard in a very long time.

The title and theme of the talk was "Battle Ready". The guiding verses were from the beginning of Judges 3. The idea McManus focused on was that God brings battles into our lives so that we learn to fight, because in fighting, we learn to trust Him more. The greater the battle, the greater the trust. Obviously, he used the commencing of his battle with cancer as his object lesson.

“God will never put you in a context where there isn’t a battle coming.”

These are not words that any of us want to hear, but at some level we all know that they are true, do we not? We know that life is not always easy. We know that there will always be some trial around the corner. They key is being ready for it. The key is knowing who you can trust to help get you through the battle. 

“I think a lot of people like watching the rain, but I don’t know if they like walking in the rain. We would rather watch an extraordinary life happen than actually live it. When you live the extraordinary life, you have to let rain get you wet.”

This came at the beginning of the talk. I think there is so much truth to this. We all want to have an extraordinary life, but are we willing to put ourselves in the place(s) to have the life come to fruition? Are we willing to do some of the difficult things - fight the difficult battles - to reach the blessing that God has for us on the other side? This hit me hard. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit over the last several days reflecting on where I may have taken - and am taking - the easy way out in my life by choosing not to fight some battle. When I look at that from the perspective that, by making that choice I am really choosing not to trust God, well, that stings, to say the least. It's convicting. And it will change.

"The journey with Jesus is not a journey where he moves the obstacles, but where He raises the bar of your life and you rise above the obstacles."

It's so important to realize that sometimes, our prayers to remove the obstacle... to remove the pain... to remove that difficult situation, without us having to face it and to learn from it and to learn to trust HIM in it, is really in the long run, more hurtful to us then fighting through and facing the situation itself.

I would encourage you all to listen to/watch the entire message. It's powerful. It will make you look at your life differently. It will make you re-evaluate some of your decisions. It will challenge you. And it will bless you.