War!

“You may not be interested in war,” quipped Leon Trotsky, “but war is interested in you.”

It’s easy to live your life in the physical, keeping your grass mowed, your to-do list short, and your weekends pleasant. This is called living life for most of us. But there is so much more to life. There is an immense, spiritual struggle going on around you. I’m reminded of the words of Abraham Kuyper,

“If once the curtain were pulled back, and the spiritual world behind it came to view, it would expose to our spiritual vision a struggle so intense, so convulsive, sweeping everything within its range, that the fiercest battle fought on earth would seem, by comparison, a mere game. Not here, but up there – that is where the real conflict is engaged. Our earthly struggles drone in its backlash.”

Kuyper mentions that the fiercest battle fought on earth would seem, by comparison, a mere game. This is intense. One of the fiercest battles ever fought on earth – perhaps the fiercest ever – was the battle of Stalingrad, fought between the Nazis and Soviets in World War II. Two million people died in that battle, and the average life expectancy for a Soviet soldier in that conflict was just 24 hours. Yet could it be that an even more immense battle rages around us?

Yes. In Revelation 12 we read of a great dragon who, by a sweep of his tail, knocks down a third of the stars of heaven. When he is about to destroy the Christ-child, he is prevented and thrown down to earth. In a fury, he wages war with the offspring of the woman, that is, with God’s people.

This is why Paul describes his fight against ‘rulers,’ ‘authorities,’ ‘cosmic powers,’ and ‘spiritual forces.’ Through your prayers, faith, and obedience, you are engaging in this fight. How often do you consider this? Suddenly, your life involves so much more than balancing the checkbook (who even does that anymore?) or getting out of work at precisely five o’clock on Friday afternoon. Something much bigger is afoot.

In fact, every person is affected by this war. The spiritual struggle of the ages is going on around us, whether we have eyes to see it or not. You may not be interested in this war, but this war is interested in you.