The Lord is a Warrior

"The Lord is a warrior! Yahweh is His name!"

Have you ever thought of that? I mean seriously thought of that? What does it mean to say that "The Lord is a warrior?" What is a warrior? What is it to serve a God that is a warrior?

I had the privilege today - and I truly see it as such - to counsel with one of our nation's fiercest warriors. His crisis is typical of most of us before we know Jesus. His language is not. His language is that of a man who has deployed to a war zone multiple times, a man who has trained as a ranger, combat diver, master parachutist, Q-course and just about every other high speed, low drag offering the Army has. His language is rough. His heart is for the battle. He has seen friends die, bullets fly. He has killed our nation's enemies.

And he thought he had no time for Bible lessons...until he met a chaplain that saw things a little differently than most of the pencil-necked, panty-waisted ministers who would at first conversation with him start by asking him to curb his language. Wrong move. You'll NEVER minister to this man that way. He knows more of this world's pain than you'll ever see from your designer church offices. He wants answers. You don't have them.

I didn't necessarily have them, either. But I do have a love for the warrior. This man never marries - he cannot, as his life blood is in action and violence on behalf of those he loves and this takes him away from home far too often. His love is to get the call and go. God built him this way, like David, like Samson, like Joshua, like Peter, like Paul. He didn't have time for Bible talk. But he had an unconquerable issue in his life that led him to a chaplain. He and I both have warrior spirits. I could meet him there.

When I told him that the Bible refers to God as a Warrior, he allowed the conversation to continue. When I told him of the heroes above, he listened. I spoke his language. It was not the soft language of hugs, rainbows and unicorns so prevalent in modern theology and preaching. It was a language of a Mighty God who builds men to prove themselves like Him ... as warriors.

We also talked of combatives training, firing ranges, IEDs, fallen comerades, weapons, war, the warrior ethos and all sorts of other unseemly things (if your church is for sissies). When he heard me speak of the Lord as a warrior, he listened at length, says he, for the first time to a chaplain - or anyone who had ever wanted to talk of spiritual things. I found out he sees God in what He's created. He found out that he needs a savior - and that the only good savior is a warrior who battled on his behalf, bearing the accusations, beatings and abuse that we deserved; and that this same warrior then, with savaged body, bore His own cross to Golgotha, laid His body thereon and died for him. Ranger school has no abuse to compare. The battlefield cannot offer such horror. The Lord is a warrior.

His eyes are open now. Mostly. He still needs to appropriate for himself that warrior's ethos - and the salvation He offered. But he knows. The Lord is a warrior. Yahweh is His name.

Are you at the rough point of the Daniel Fast? I don't care. What sissies we are sometimes. "I have a headache." "I don't feel well." "I need chocolate." When I compare this current discomfort with that endured by such a warrior as I spoke to today, or more so with that endured by my Savior, I feel foolish. Can I not stay awake for just one hour? The Lord is a warrior. He does not do "easy." He demands our all. He demands our utmost devotion. He demands our very lives. Let us not forget that this life is transient. It is war. Whosoever would seek their constant pleasure in this life is not worthy of the next. Take up your cross. Follow Him. He is a warrior. Yahweh is His name.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 1 Cor. 4:17