The Battle Belongs to the Lord
Name your battle. It's HIS.
We have this persistent delusion that we’re on our own. No matter how mature we are in the faith, our instinctive response to frustration and turmoil is, Why me? What if we changed that last pronoun? What if it was, Why us?
“Us.” That is your identity, both now and into eternity. You are indwelled by the Father, Son, and Spirit. (More on that HERE.) There is no longer such a thing as “just me.”
This truth was crystalized for me when I was pouring out sweat at the end of a 3.5 mile run. I was listening with a full heart to Phil Wickham’s “The Battle Belongs to You.” In my weakness and exhaustion, it was obvious how much I needed refreshment, energy, strength . . . grace. On my own, I was tired and insufficient and spent. But I wasn’t on my own. Every battle in my life—from the 3 mile runs to the panic attacks to the early loss of my father—was not my own. Every battle belonged to the Lord. And every battle will belong to the Lord. At the end of my run, I was overwhelmed with worshipful gratitude: it will always be us. God is ever present and always fighting for me.
Why isn’t this my default response to hardship?
The Invisibility of God
Short answer: because God is an invisible Spirit. The Westminster Confession of Faith (2.1) calls God “a most pure spirit.” It’s easy to gloss over that word and let our images of God as a giant old man persist. Part of what it means for God to be a spirit is that we can’t perceive him as we would physical creatures.
Do you view this as a challenge or as a blessing? We live as if it’s a challenge (and it is), but we don’t see the blessing often enough. The blessing of God’s invisibility is this: There is nothing in the physical world that can hinder his presence with you. Nothing.
The weather changes; God is constant. Relationships come and go; God is constant. Material provision ebbs and flows; God is constant. Cancer takes your father; God is constant. You welcome a child into the world; God is constant. You struggle with patience in parenting; God is constant. There is no event, experience, or place in your life where God is not. The fact that you can’t see him isn’t part of this truth equation. Isn’t that a blessing?
God, Your Invisible Warrior
But the blessing grows deeper. It’s not just that the triune God is with you always, that he’s standing next to you in every battle. Even better: God fights for you. We struggle to believe that because we want to be the ones who control how God fights.
“God, if you're fighting for me, then my cancer will go into remission.”
“God, if you’re fighting for me, then my professional life will get better.”
“God, if you’re fighting for me, then you’ll give me more patience with my kids.”
We don’t control how God fights. And we usually won’t see how he fights. (Remember, he’s an invisible Spirit.) But Scripture assures us that he does. Even in that passage we all go to for provision in spiritual warfare (Eph. 6) says the same. After discussing the Old Testament background for the spiritual armor Paul lays out in Ephesians 6, Iain Duguid writes,
Most importantly, the Old Testament background challenges the common view that the Christian armor is primarily a set of disciplines we must perform to measure up as Christians. It is certainly true that God’s armor describes essential qualities for us to pursue passionately if we are to stand firm under Satan’s assault. Yet the armor is first and foremost God’s armor rather than ours. Through the gospel, the divine warrior gives us his equipment, which he wore first triumphantly in our place in his definitive struggle against the forces of evil.
Iain Duguid, “Sacred Weapons for Spiritual War”
God wore the armor first. God went to war for you. And he won. The battles that you face today and tomorrow are skirmishes in a war that’s already been decided. And the warrior who won that war lives inside you. In that sense, you’re not the one fighting your spiritual battles; God is. God is your invisible warrior.
Name Your Battle
Whatever your battle is today, utter it out loud. Name your battle. That battle is God’s, not yours. He is fighting. He will always be fighting. There is no such thing, my friend, as “just you.” Sure, you’ll still feel and experience great hardship. You’ll know frustration and guilt and envy. But God is orchestrating even those things for the good of your salvation, for the strengthening of your soul. He is your invisible warrior. And he’s never lost a fight. Every battle belongs to him.
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