For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of
evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)
The
weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary,
they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets
itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience,
once your obedience is complete. (II Corinthians 10:4-6)
Today begins a
study for which I feel a distinct need: spiritual warfare. I’m concerned about
doing such a study because I don’t want to sensationalize it. Let’s begin with
what I’m not going to discuss. I’m not talking about a fantasy novel with a
larger-than-life chosen one who goes out to slay a dragon. It’s not about you
being some hero who rides into town on a white horse to take on corruption. I’m
not talking about going mano-a-mano with the Devil, either in a fiddle
competition or an exorcism. I am writing about little old you, and little old
me facing daily life in the circumstances that we face. While all of this is especially
true with a pandemic among us, it’s just as true when everything is what we
consider the status quo.
With all that
in mind, who or what is the enemy against whom we must wage our war.
Ultimately, it’s Satan, because he’s the cause of it all, but Satan is not likely
to waste any time coming against you or me. He’s not really likely to spare one
of his generals, or captains, or lieutenants on us. He might not even send a recruit
after us. He did all he needed to do to most of us back in Eden. He turned us
into our own worst enemies, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find him sitting
back with his feet up most of the time. Why wage a war when your enemy is
defeating itself for you?
The last time we
explored Ephesians 6, one emphasis was that we experience defeat whenever we
are separated, even by the distance of the size of a viral particle (0.0000022441
inches or 57 nanometers.) It doesn’t matter how tiny the separation is, the fact of the separation means our defeat because it represents a foot in the
door, or a beachhead on which a tower can be constructed.
In Screwtape
Letters, Uncle Screwtape tells his protégé: “You will say that these are very small
sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to
report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that
matters is the extent to which separate the man from the Enemy. It does
not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to
edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no
better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to
Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings,
without milestones, without signposts. (p 60) Murder is no better than cards. Cards are no
better than a threat of a virus if the threat will do the trick.
What are the things that separate us from God? As Professor Lewis
pointed out, big and small sins, from murder to cards will do the trick, but
while those are the more obvious wedges, we’re facing a different kind of army
at the moment. We face this different kind of army at every moment.
Psychologists list basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness,
sadness, surprise, amusement, contempt, contentment, embarrassment, excitement,
guilt, pride, relief, satisfaction, sensory pleasure, shame.[1]
Half of the list are considered negative emotions. We know that anger, disgust,
fear, sadness, contempt, embarrassment, guilt, pride, and shame are negative emotions
that can damage us. We might feel justified in feeling some of them, but they
aren’t really good for us. In the past week, I’ve felt some negative emotions.
They are what led me to start this study. I’ve felt sadness, guilt, and shame.
I’ve also felt what are probably combinations of these things: anxiety,
overwhelmed, and one of the supposed emotional hallmarks of this time:
uncertainty. Which of these are you experiencing? A bigger question – are they separating
you from God, or drawing you nearer to them?
Something else to consider. The larger part of the list is supposedly
positive emotions that we should encourage in our lives. How could happiness, surprise,
amusement, contentment, excitement, relief, satisfaction, or sensory pleasure be negative? How can feeling those be a bad thing? Feeling them isn’t a bad thing. I’m not
an outwardly emotional person – or I’d prefer not to be. I grew up wanting to
be a Vulcan. Some folks may dismiss what is being suggested here as yet another
diatribe on my part against emotions. It’s not. This isn’t about feeling
emotions. It’s about what emotions can do to us.
Emotions can separate us from God by turning our focus away from God and
to what generates the emotion. When we feel anger, disgust, fear, sadness,
contempt, embarrassment, guilt, pride, or shame, our focus tends to move from
God to ourselves, to the one who we blame for the feeling, or to the feeling itself.
When you’re in pain, your world narrows to the pain or its cause. That’s just
reality.
It’s also reality that when we feel happiness, surprise, amusement, contentment,
excitement, relief, satisfaction, or sensory pleasure, our focus tends to
narrow to the feeling or its cause. We turn to the cause for more hits of dopamine
– for more pleasure. I understand this. I spent 20 years wandering through
cemeteries and sitting in libraries because every time I found a piece of
information about my family, I got a hit. I won. Computer chair dance time, I
have the obituary of whoever. When I break down a box because we’ve emptied its
contents onto the shelf at my church’s food pantry, I get a hit. When I
photograph a critter I’ve rarely or never photographed or get a good photo of
something, I get a hit. When I sing, I get a hit. And when bad things happen, I
don’t get a hit, I get hit. Either way, it’s easy to seek the hits and to seek
to avoid being hit. Those two things can become our driving forces. They can
separate us from God.
This doesn’t mean avoiding all emotions. It does mean that we need to
avoid emotionalism, which is defined as 1: a tendency to regard things emotionally. 2 :
undue indulgence in or display of emotion.
I’m not sure how
this is going to go. I know I’m struggling with this and I want to address it because
if I’m struggling, chances are good that others are, too. Praying for WDA, as
usual.
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