Climb

Days like today have a way of making me want to curl up in the lap of a protector. I know that my fight is not against the flesh and bone and the physical things that my eyes can behold, but against the dark rulers and realms that go unseen. I woke up today fighting. Not a physical battle but a battle that as soon as I opened my eyes I could feel in my heart. I wish I had stopped then and prayed earnestly. Instead I busily went about preparing for my day of work and school assignments and tried to fight the fight myself.

I spent the day in war over the thoughts of my mind and stayed mostly to myself. This isn’t a problem except that I know that I have specifically been called to love on and to bring comfort and peace of mind to others and in order to do that you have to be open and inviting for others. I feel like today I failed miserably. There was even a couple of times where unprovoked I was tempted to reply harshly or even to not reply at all to someone conversing with me. Each time I would feel God’s voice clearly saying, “why, would you do that, that is not of your nature”. I would reply in my heart “but what if I am angry and what if this is just who I am“. He faithfully would reply “you are Mine and I have called you love and mercy and kindness; you were made new in Me; you have a new nature”

When I was little I would watch American Gladiators with my dad. The gladiators were huge compared to the contestants and their only goal was to thwart the efforts made by the contestants to win each challenge. One of the challenges on the show was a huge rock wall that the contestants would have to try and scale before the gladiators, after a delayed start, could catch and pull them back down.

This may be a silly and simple comparison, but in my daily climb to becoming more like Christ there are dark powers and authorities that are in pursuit of my heel. They are trying to slow me, pull me down, and keep me from the goal of living, loving, and becoming more like my Savior. They want me to believe that I am and will always be who I once was, and that I am stuck and tethered to this body and this flesh and this world. But Christ has called me to a royal priesthood. I no longer have to live that way or follow the way of the flesh I once walked in. He made me new. He has set my sight on things above. Not only that, but He himself is the power by which I make the climb.