This Is Your Life

"I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that has been given to us."

(The Fellowship of the Ring)

And so the lights begin to dim on 2009. Soon they will fade to black; the last candle will be snuffed, the ledgers closed, the old year put to bed forever. And time, in its inexorable manner, will march on into the awaiting mystery of 2010...whether we wish for it to or not.

Yes, the books on the old year will be closed and sealed...for a time. The story of 2009 will have come to a conclusion...but not to an end. For nothing beautiful shall ever be lost. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken in That Day; but remember your Lewis: we shall outlive the stars; we shall live to remember this galaxy as an old tale. By the deep magic of the Eternal One we have been made eternal beings ourselves, and one day ancient keys will turn once again in ancient locks, the books will be opened, and 2009 - just as every other year - will be laid bare before the eyes of all the Heavenly Company: that glorious gathering of redeemed Men and righteous angels and all the Others - every unfallen creature that has ever danced beneath the forest groves and upon secret glades in the moonlight hidden from the self-absorbed eyes of Mortal Man.

How will the story read in that day? How will your moment on the stage be remembered? Did 2009 contain your most shining moment? One night, under a starry sky in Paradise, will you beg the Elders around the campfire, saying, "Please, can we read about 2009 again? That's my favoritest story!" Or, like most of us, will you huddle in the shadows at the edge of the firelight, hoping nobody notices you and wonders why you played such a minor role in the unfolding drama of that evening's tale? Will you cringe at the telling of wasted days, lost opportunities, missed joys, broken relationships, and inglorious retreats from a battle you felt destined to lose, but now wonder if you hadn't been deceived into that cowardly despair? Will you wish that you had fought more bravely, sacrificed more heroically, and loved more passionately?

No matter.

What's done is done.

Right now we have more pressing business to attend to. The quill is trimmed and dipped; the volume opened, the page turned. We stand before it with anticipation: "the deep breath before the plunge". A new chapter is about to be written.

What role will you play in 2010?

Good grief, you say, forget all this Romantic mumbo-jumbo about Epic roles and shining moments! I just want to make it through this next year without losing my job or my sanity, without succumbing to a serious illness or an even-more-serious addiction, without experiencing the death of an old dream or an old family member, and without receiving too much attention from my dentist, the children's school principal, or the IRS.

Wouldn't you love to hear the statistics on how many people's grandest New Year's Resolution is going to be about how they plan on losing a little excess weight in 2010 (in any way they can besides simply eating less, of course)??

Brothers and sisters, while there is nothing wrong with determining to make a "fresh start" with the coming new year, allow us here along The Warrior's Path to remind you that there is a lot more going on than that. The new year is not simply a time to make a personal commitment to "trying harder". The way we mostly go about planning and proposing and determining our path into the future is, as John Eldredge likes to say, basically God-less, (i.e done as if God were not a major character playing a major role in the unfolding drama of our lives.) It is also, if we may add to that, inherently "epic-less", "story-less", and "eternity-less" - among a great many other things. Our plans and "resolutions" lack any true sense of what is actually happening in the universe around us. We don't need to "try harder". We need to think differently. And no -not because we "ought" to think differently. This is no moral imperative. But because we need to think differently. It is what we were made for.

Dark and ominous things will happen in 2010. The hunt to destroy your heart and soul is only going to intensify. There will be moments of decision, both big and small: chances to turn back, choices to press on or play it safe, opportunities to defy the darkness or let it steal the hearts of those around you. Meanwhile, bright and wonderful things will happen too, for "there are other forces at work in the world besides the forces of evil" (Fellowship). Unlooked for aid will come to you in an unexpected way. Perhaps some further degree of healing will be offered to you, if you are open to receiving it.

And, best of all, if we can overlook our earth-bound instincts for safety and comfort, 2010 will provide some of us with the chance to do something that will echo into eternity.

Will this be the year that you give yourself over to an act or an adventure that we will all be talking about and rejoicing over in another 2,000 years? What other reason could there be for stepping onto the merry-go-round for another 365 day turn?

"This is your life...

Are you who you want to be?" (Switchfoot)

May you play your part well in 2010,

(and please let us know how we can fight beside you...)

Derrick and David

Voices of the Past

The call to the Warrior's life is not something new. You can rest your heart on the fact that we did not invent it. It is not the brainchild of some popular thrust towards "innovation", nor has it been formed in reaction to a particular "mood" that is current to the present populace. Echoing the spirit of Chesterton's famous words in Orthodoxy we can say we did not make The Warrior's Path, but rather that it is making us. As we prepare to fully enter into the expectation and Hope offered through this Holy week, allow the words of a past generation to carry the torch of our message for us, in words too magnificent for us to dare to imitate even had we the free hours to do so. More than 130 years ago the great man of God Charles Spurgeon wrote the following words:

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“War always will rage between the two great sovereignties until one or the other is crushed. Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; to pretend otherwise would signal a victory for the powers of darkness. Michael will always fight; his holy soul is vexed with sin and will not endure it. Jesus will always be the dragon’s foe, and not in any quiet sense but actively, vigorously, with full determination to exterminate evil. All his servants, whether angels in heaven or messengers on earth, will and must fight; they are born to be warriors. At the cross they enter into a covenant never to make a truce with evil; they are a warlike company, firm in defense and fierce in attack. The duty of every soldier in the army of the Lord is every day, with all his heart and soul and strength, to fight against the dragon.

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The dragon and his angels will fight back; they are incessant in their onslaughts, prepared to use every kind of weaponry, whether fair or foul. We are foolish to expect to serve God without opposition: the more zealous we are, the more we can expect to be assailed by the ruffians of hell. The church may become lazy, but her great antagonist does not; his restless spirit never suffers the war to pause; he hates the woman’s seed, and would happily devour the church if he could. The servants of Satan share a great deal of the old dragon’s energy and are usually an active race. War rages all around, and to dream of peace is dangerous and futile.

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Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon shall be cast out and forever destroyed, while Jesus and those who are with him shall receive the crown. So let us sharpen our swords tonight, and ask the Holy Spirit to make us ready for the conflict. Battle was never so important, and the crown never so glorious. Every man to his post, ye warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly!

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)

The Storm is Coming

“Are you frightened?”

-- “Yes.”

“Not nearly frightened enough. I know what hunts you.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring)

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How strange, this Unseen Reality that weighs down upon our existence! At times we long to know that all of it is Real with a longing so deep and so strong that we could almost fear that our hearts will break if we ever discover that is not so. And yet, at other times life feels like such a chore, such a never-ending battle in which we constantly feel that we are being pressed back towards imminent defeat, that we secretly wish to just be left alone.

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Left alone to mind our own business.

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Two great, cosmic superpowers embroiled in an epic clash for the dominion of the Universe? Sure, I like the sound of that story. But why does something that huge need to involve little old me? Someone is seriously offering me a major role in the Story? Well, I don’t know. Things like this make good movies, you know? The sort of think I’d like to watch. In safety. Enjoy the thrill of the ride in the comfort of my reclining theatre chair, if you catch what I’m saying. Well, yeah, I guess it would be more exciting than the life I’m living right at the moment. Not nearly as comfortable, though… A major role, eh? Lots of people depending on me? The fates of many hanging in the balance? Maybe like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars? Sure beats the story I thought I was in: earn money, spend money, save money, die and leave your money to someone else. But…what sort of guarantees can you give me? I really don’t like Pain. Very low threshold. I’m a fainter. Can’t stand the sight of blood – especially my own. That’s the whole thing behind the ‘earn money, spend money, etc.’ bit: doing what I can to avoid pain. So, what sort of guarantees come with this Cosmic Adventure to End All Adventures of yours? The Bad Guy, for instance. What about him? He’s bound to be a little miffed if I join up with your side. So…he’s pretty harmless, right? Sort’ve a figurehead? More metaphor than monster? I mean, I know I mentioned the Star Wars connection a minute ago, but this isn’t like I would have someone as twisted, as insidious, as diabolical, as powerful as Darth Vader breathing down my neck…would I? Sure, I know the Bible refers to him as the Great Dragon…that’s hyperbole, right? Poetic license? We’re not talking Reign of Fire type terrifying here, are we? Hang on – I’m working my way up to a decision. I just would like all the facts before I go barging in. You say your side is going to win? Well, that changes the outlook quite a bit, doesn’t it? Okay, maybe I’ll…what’s that you say? Despite you’re telling me that your side is going to win, it’s really not going to look like, or feel like, your side is going to win? And I can be assured that it is going to always turn darkest before the dawn? And you can’t make any guarantees on the whole avoiding Pain thing? And…what? Not everyone who ‘joins up’ is going to survive? The Dragon actually gets to…(gulp)…devour those of us who don’t stand firm to the very end? You know what – maybe I’ll just pass on this for now. I can always catch the movie version when it comes to the theatres, right?

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John Eldredge asks the question “Why does every story have a villain?” His answer: “Because yours does.” But no matter how versed you are in the teachings of Ransomed Heart, most of the time it is a flat-out struggle to believe anything of the sort. Who me? Hunted? Come on. And then some emissary of the Enemy, some fiend of Hell, decides to pop into our life and do a tap-dance on our skull – and we are shocked, confused, and blasted out of the water. All the things you would expect from someone who was wholly unprepared to defend themselves.

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“I know what hunts you.”

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Let’s be brutally honest with ourselves. Almost all of you have watched the film version of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, so you have a pretty good notion of what we are talking about if we ask you to imagine that you are Frodo and his companions as they flee across the Shire trying to make it to the Inn of the Prancing Pony before the Nine Ringwraiths, the Dark Lord’s most powerful servants, are able to catch them. Hunted on the Road. Hunted through the trackless forests. Hunted on the hills. Hunted to the banks of the Brandywine. Hunted all the way to Crickhollow. Always hunted. Fleeing, as Tolkien writes, “from danger into danger.”

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Now let me ask you: how relevant is that to what you believe to be happening to you in the Spiritual Realm? Come on; be honest. The truth is that it is nothing like what we believe to be happening to us at this very moment. Seriously: those Ringwraiths – you are talking some seriously scary stuff there! If we were being hunted by something like that – well that would change things….

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See? We just won’t let the whole story sink all the way in, will we? Our scientific world view refuses to accept that the explanation of what is going on here could be better summed up in the form of a Fairy-tale than in any other form of logical description that we might feel more comfortable turning to.

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“I know what hunts you.”

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Either your life is the target of the most malicious, destructive villainy ever imagined, or the Bible is patently untrue. Sit down with some of your favorite movies again. Notice that something adventurous and warlike inside of you rises up at the depiction of Evil portrayed in the film, something that thinks, “This whole Christian thing would be a lot more intriguing if the ‘bad guy’ of our theology was as terrifying as the bad guy in this movie”.

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There is no other way to put this; we hope this hits home with you in a way that you cannot forget: No story ever written, no movie ever made, has ever come close to creating a villain more cruel, more cunning, more diabolical, more relentless, more insidious, more powerful, or more dangerous, than God’s Enemy and ours, the Prince of Darkness “who leads the whole world astray”. Not Commodus. Not Edward Longshanks. Not Captain Hook of Never-land or The White Witch of Narnia. Not Vlad the Impaler or a whole book shelf of new Vampire villains. Not Sauron the Destroyer. Not Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, or Glaurung, father of all Worms (dragons). No, Harry, not even Valdemort.

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You, my friend, are being hunted. Really, if you could see the full picture, you’d realize, both to your delight and to your terror, that the truth is: you’re in a worse plight than Frodo ever was.

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Sure, you’ve got some pretty glowing promises about how things are going to turn out in the end for those that remain true to their Captain, that hold to their testimony to the point of shedding their own blood, if necessary.

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But before the Promise comes the Storm.

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And the Storm is coming.

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Holding on with fierce faith,

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Derrick and David