The Soldier and the Cross [New Battlefields]

Fatigue propels me towards sleep. Sleep, only so peaceful under these circumstances.
I have only a week left, and as happens every time I am about to return to the "Land of the Free," I have this burning...

I have been writing here. More, not less, than at home in fact. But those words are destined for published page, not the blog. Thus long silence.

In the mean time though, the moments before sleep claims my attention are filled with other things.
Like, this desperation that every friend I have in the great West would come to understand the extent of other battlefields, the importance of other battlefields...

And then I found this. It's not a blogpost. It's raw off of a journal page two years old. But it's 570 words worth of what God will do with the life of every man or woman that claims victory over the battlefield between their own ears, and becomes available to God to go off a bit further...

Oh, make that every one of us, Your Grace...

A splattering of photos. More on Google+ and Instagram. 

20 miles on jungle trails in the foothills of the Andes with these shoes. Happiness.

if only a photo could actually capture it...

hilltops full of Inca ruins...

I have learned that starlight is enough. Leave the flashlight at home.

multiple exposures. learning a new game.

home away from home.

that sky...

____________________________

February 2011:

When a child of the Highest finds himself at the foot of the cross, the first thing God does it to commission him as a soldier.

What do soldiers do? Fight.
And who do soldiers fight? Enemies.

David has a great deal to say about enemies. It seems he had a lot of them. Until recently I thought I didn't have enemies... But now I realize I do.

My enemies are inside me. They seek my hurt. They watch for my life. They wait in the darkness, in the silence, to find a moment of weakness and send me plummenting to my death.

I have enemies alright.

And these I am commissioned to fight.

The first commission given to a soldier after he has knelt at the foot of the cross is the fight against his own selfish heart. The selfish heart is the farthest thing possible from the cross of Jesus Christ. It, (along with its cherished sentiments, pride, vanity, impurity, and a host of others) represents the first battle to be won.

But here is where many fail.
They fail to look beyond the first battle to the endless expanse beyond.

And after fighting the terrors inside teir own breasts, they come crushed to the foot of the cross-- (the earnest ones do)

"I'm done. I'm broken. There is nothing left. I'm tired of being beaten to pulp. I can't stand up, I can't even sit up! All I can do is lie on my face, moan over my bruises, and try to survive. It isn't worth it."

And indeed, such an existence wouldn't be.

But that is not the end of all things.
It is only the beginning.

For you see, a soldier lives entirely between the foot of the cross, and the battlefield.

But as he gets stronger, his battlefields change.
His enemies change.

It is God's intention that the territory farthest from the cross, that inhabited by selfishness, pride, impurity..., should become His. He does not intend that the soldier should always be stuck down in the valley a day's hike from Calvary.

One battle is to prepare the soldier for the next...
The distance between the battlefield and the foot of the cross grows less and less.
Until the soldier is no longer fighting for his life... But fighting for the Cross..

This is what it means to be a soldier.

And as the battlefield changes, so do the enemies. No longer are they demons out solo, trying to crush out one little life.

These are the legions, the best of the best (worst of the worst) and they are trying to uproot the cross itself.

But this soldier is the best of God's best too. He's a "Navy SEAL" of the kingdom of God. And with burning muscles, one arm around the cross and the other armed with his sword; his own blood spattering on the stones around him, he grips, he defends that cross. Nothing but death can separate them.


But that's not all.
There is One sacrifice.
But there are thousands of crosses.

And so God comes to His special forces; those who cannot be separated from the cross and yet live. And looking lovingly upon them He asks for volunteers...

"See this cross?"
"Yes Sir."
"I need this cross planted over there. in the heart of darkness."
"I go, Sir."
"You will spill your blood, and may lose your life."
"But will the cross stand where I fall?"
"The cross always stands. I promise."