Part III

So here I am ... at the end of my lengthy first title. And after the praise and distractions, where have I landed? What am I standing in now? Smack dab in the middle of a fight. A fight that is not one that you can see (unlike the one Syd and I saw at the high school open house last night between two parents!) but one that you may miss seeing me entangled in, one that you probably won't even know exists. What kind of fight am I entangled in? A fight between flesh and spirit; a fight dug deep within my soul that pulls me in ways that I can not explain, a fight that only I am involved in, a fight over my heart.
I don't know how long this fight will last and I have no expectation that I will suddenly and unexpectedly win this fight. There are many deceiving moves that my opponent has been armed with, moves that I am not prepared to defend, so how do I fight? How do I get through this fight? 2 Cor 10:3 "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh." There are many scriptures like this one, actually more than I thought I'd find when I started to realize that this fight was going on and I was in the middle of it. Were they all encouraging, supportive and full of great help...NO! I'm just putting that out there in case you were wondering. I think that most Christians would tell you that is not true that His word is full of encouragement and words of wisdom, and they are right, but most of those words are taken out of context. Wouldn't you agree? I mean if you read every part of scripture that was encouraging and full of life either before or after that is a section of strife, discouraging moments, anger, and faithless moments. So why do 'we' give someone all the good in scripture to encourage them? What do 'we' expect to accomplish? I think 'we' believe that  if we give encouraging words that those we speak to will be able to be lifted. But are they really lifted? Are we really encouraged? Well, I don't know, I never really was, but something does help me feel encouraged. The fact that every one of God's chosen went through a battle, a fight, a faithless walk that ended, somehow, in life of the spirit and encouragement. That is where I find comfort, in the fight that those He knows have walked through and won.
The fight that I am in is over my heart, just like all those who we read encouraging words from in the word. My fight is a set back, one that I wasn't expecting, one that literally sneaked up on me. I can't be certain how this battle will end up, I can not foresee how this fight will be different than those that I have been through before. What I do know is that this fight, like those I have read over, is the same fight, the same struggle that many others have walked through without receiving any relief. There is only one way to get through this fight, by going through it. I didn't even realize that I was in a fight until 3 days ago, so how did I get here - how is is possible that I ended up here without seeing the first blow? It is meant to be that way, really in the heart of it, the enemy (no matter what name you give it, anger, fear, depression, loneliness, etc) doesn't want you to see the first blow.  It usually hits you when you least expect it and can take you down before you even know you've been hit. There are many ways to fight, my favorite way is to run. I don't think that I will be so lucky this time to run away, although that is my preferred fighting technique, I don't think I can outrun this one. So how do I fight this war? I need to first realize that this fight is a struggle but not of the flesh, don't get me wrong sometimes it feels like it is of the flesh and sometimes it really is against the flesh but not this time.
I can only remember and hold true to the fact that this fight will be a battle that I fight with faith, placing the full armor of God on (Eph 6:12-18) and knowing that this fight is not a war in the flesh and I can not win this fight in the flesh but through faith; no matter how far away that faith is, no matter how little or faint, faith will be on my side if I chose walk with it.
I wonder what fight you are in, what fight has drug you backwards to the middle of it, setting you back to the place you thought you were through? There is not doubt that I am in the middle of a fight, it happened without me even seeing the first blow, probably the same way it happened to you. Now, more than ever, I need to fight. Now more than before, I need to realize that this fight is going to be longer than I wanted, desired, or expected. Now, I have to fight. I wonder what you will do?