Choosing to Fight
Written by Millie Harris in Washington, DC.
As I have pondered this effort and the small contribution I am able to make to other women, striving to live for Christ all over the world, the simplicity, difficulty and universality of our discipleship has occurred to me repeatedly. I am certainly no paragon of Christian virtue, but that is the beauty of the grace of God. If my virtue was the standard, I, with the whole of humanity, would be doomed. So, I have thrown myself upon the mercy of God and accepted the challenge to put on the armor discussed in Ephesians 6:10-20 to fight in his army.
This fight looks very different, and yet the same, for all of us. The decision that every woman makes is to fight, whatever comes our way. We do not know what life will bring us. When I was young, I had no idea what my life would look like (though I certainly thought I did). I began my Christian walk with great determination and excitement. My parents were Christians, and I saw no real struggle in maintaining my faith. However, life happens to all of us. We struggle. People disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. We want to fall apart. Our culture tells us what we should do. These are the times we must remind ourselves of Ephesians 6:12. We are at war against spiritual forces of evil. Satan tells us to listen to others who have lost the faith: our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends, our culture. We made a commitment to fight for God, but we are exhausted and discouraged.
We all struggle with different forms of evil. My struggles, I hope, are not the same as yours. My husband fell away from Christ, and my marriage finally failed. I wish I could say that I never considered giving up, that I always kept my eyes on Christ, but, of course, that was not the case. However, I did still believe. I KNEW that I believed. Ephesians 6:16 says, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” When there seems to be nothing left, we must remind ourselves of the fight we began and what we believe!
However, the loss of my husband was not my most difficult spiritual fight. For me, the biggest struggle has been the spiritual loss of my child. I do not believe this is an uncommon fight among Christians. Christ said, in Matthew 10: 35 that he came to set a daughter against her mother. If we have taken up our cross and fastened on the belt of truth (Eph 6:14), our relationship with those who have chosen the world must change. In fact, Christ is very clear in Matthew 10:37 that if I love my child more than Him, I am not worthy of Him. In verse 38, He continues the discussion by saying “whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
It is interesting, and, I believe, not accidental that the relationships Christ discusses in Matthew 10: 34-39 are between parents and children. These are the relationships in which we form our character. They are our first relationships. As a child, my parents instilled values of God and the world, whether positive or negative. As a parent, I have been tasked with raising that child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. As a mother, I spend my life loving, teaching, guiding and encouraging this child with whom I have been blessed. It is a primal connection. Thus, when that child rejects my teaching and my God, my very heart is pierced. This rejection becomes my cross. This child who wants to convince me that she is right owns a part of my heart. The question really is, does she own more of my heart than Christ?
That is the question for all of us. So many parents are pulled away by unfaithful children. They can not bear to admit that a child stands condemned before God. It seems better to accept the “doctrine” of the child in order to maintain that familial bond. This never ends well! The problem is that truth does not change, even if we do. Do we take up our cross so long as everything is going well? Do we stand for truth so long as we maintain family unity? Are we simply hereditary Christians? I pray this is not so!
When we take up our cross and follow Christ, we enlist in his army. We can not allow anyone, or anything, to distract us from our ultimate goal. We are soldiers together. We must work to strengthen and build each other up as we all strive to represent Christ on this earth. It is easy to look at our fellow sisters and feel that we don’t understand each other’s hardships. To some extent that is true. I do not have the same life experience as many of my sisters, and you do not have mine. However, our challenges are all part of the human condition. We all made the same commitment at some point in our life. We all face adversities which test that commitment. Your cross may not be like mine, or maybe it is; I don’t know that. What I do know is that each of our crosses is very real. We are in a spiritual battle that we have chosen. We serve our Lord. We must never allow any transient, worldly thing (including our children) to weaken our resolve to the commitment we made.
In life, I often do not understand the way forward, but there is nowhere else to go than Christ. I have often contemplated Peter’s response to Christ in John 6:68. Many disciples had turned back from Jesus, and he asked the twelve if they were also going to leave him. Peter’s words are so powerful and poignant. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”