Determination in Defeat
If I were to write a book about the number of times I’ve wanted to give up, run to my bed, pull the covers over, and sink into the abyss of hopelessness and despair, I’d more than likely never finish it because I would give up on that too.
Thankfully, I won’t be writing the guide to give up, but rather the blog on believing, or at least that’s the hope, in a world not only consumed by darkness but hell-bent on the destruction of dreams.
Far too many Christians fall victim to the killers of passion and live a defeated life. Day after day, we face defeat after defeat, embracing the path of the downtrodden rather than the way of the rich; in mercy, I mean.
We ponder the situations God places us in or end up getting into by not following His provided way, with our own thoughts, processing the circumstances with our limited comprehension, as opposed to letting God, the all-knowing, do the thinking for us, showing us what it is He wants us to learn. We take a moment in time, a defeat, and turn it into a lifestyle. We believe this is the way things are and that our lives will never be any better, accepting doom as a dagger rather than a scalpel. All things are tools in. the hands of God, as the scalpel is more than a blade in the hands of a surgeon.
To my understanding, the problem is not that we are doomed to live a defeated life, but rather, we choose a defeated life when a victorious one is far too threatening, insurmountable, overwhelming, and taxing. It requires an effort that we are not used to nor want to give, We don’t want to change. We don’t want to fight. In the understanding of warfare on a physical level, we know that a lost battle is not a lost war, and therefore, though we lose many struggles, that doesn’t mean we’ve lost the conflict. Remember our Commander who has given us the mission; be made strong in bad times. Though our fight is not against flesh and blood, it is a brawl nonetheless.
In my very short experience in my twenty-five years of life, my solution has remained constant: determination is derived from perception, the position we take into the fight. How we perceive the adversary. Whom we see Christ as. Whether or not we see God in the details rather than the devil. We are made strong by our weakness, and if we can see that it is The Master working rather than the deceiver, then our losses will not be defeats but rather victory amid absolution.
If you feel defeated, then determine where you stand, and in the words of the apostle Paul, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
My scripture for the year, by the way.
See you next Monday!
~ John
