The Bible Verse None of Us Believes – at First

Some days you feel like the warrior you are because of Jesus.

Your armor glints in the sun. Your soul senses the power of the risen Christ within you and you itch for a front-line assignment. The enemy is before you, ever at work, but greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world is the motto emblazoned on your shield and you sink your teeth into the truth of it. You follow the One of the divine pronoun and believe the lower case he is already defeated, you have only to step into your freedom to see victory.

This is not one of those days.

Today, you remember once feeling like a warrior and somehow you know it must still be true, but there is no glory where you lay. Your armor is on but it’s soiled and covered with dried blood – yours and the blood of fellow warriors. You fell, wounded, during that stint on the front lines where it didn’t feel like sure victory but instead, like a mouthful of gravel, confusion, noise, discomfort, and pain. You take by faith this will not be in vain but right now the enemy whispers into your ear where your helmet has gone askew that you’ve failed your King and have become of no use in the battle.

You huddle beneath your shield like a child beneath her bed in a storm and the motto is small comfort now, more like a lullaby you remember from childhood than a warrior’s call. From your back, you stare at a sky blackened with strange fire. How will He find you when He returns, a soldier drained of strength who once fought well but now cannot lift a head unless someone should mercifully assist?

And it is, in this moment, that the heartless, relentless forces of darkness rally against your section of the wall. That place you are called to defend and to build is hard under enemy assault. You hear them coming, see the line of approach, but your limbs won’t obey your command to move. This is it. This is the moment you are revealed as a failed soldier before your King, whom you love, who gave His life for yours. You are not worthy.

Suddenly, you hear His voice in Gideon’s story. Gideon who hid from the enemy. Gideon of the small army. Gideon of the people who stood no chance. Gideon of the people of the field forced to defend against a mighty force that terrorized his section of the wall. This voice now speaks to you: “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

You answer with Gideon’s words: “Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

And the unchanging King responds to you: “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

Go in the strength you have.

Go in the strength you have.

“But, Lord,” you respond, “I have no strength for this going. I have no might of my own.”

And a voice more true than the voice of evil speaks firmly into your ear as the Arm of the Lord sets your helmet into place, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

And you respond with the words the Holy Spirit gave to Paul who knew shipwrecks and beatings and imprisonment and days of bloodied armor: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And you hate this verse as much as you love it but the arm of the Lord reaches down and burns it onto your breastplate. As the sparks fly you stop resisting His ways, yield your own glory, and find your strength strangely, powerfully, supernaturally renewed. From this fragile place, a mighty warrior is reborn. This verse you’ve spent years almost not believing suddenly appears like a passageway through a wall of giants.

And the enemy senses a turn in the direction of the battle.

Need an encouraging moment in song? Listen to My Heart will Trust in You

The Bible Verse None of Us Believes – at First https://t.co/ZOeaNLFLpI#amwriting#strength#Warriors#spiritualwarfare

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) July 1, 2016

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