Setting Up Shop

Last night was the first night where we actually took an hour and forced ourselves to sit, read, and watch part of a DVD together. As Jessica wrote in an entry a few days ago, the logistics of every day life are much more complicated, slower, and require extreme flexibility, and we are forced to focus more on relationships and less on tasks. A second round of physical exhaustion hit last night as we wrapped up another day of lifting, climbing, and painting. Week two is drawing to an end, and the list of tasks to set up shop here at the house is finally shifting from major items to decorating details.

Yet, even with the shift of focus, the tasks are limitless. Now that the applicances are in, the paint is on the walls, and the 20+ suitcases have been unpacked and put away, the to-do list isn't any shorter. Instead, the mind races to the next "thing" that will really make the place feel like home. Curtains, patching rusted-out holes in the doors (had a mouse in the house last night), etc.

In the middle of the exhaustion, our son Nate broke down last night and started sobbing. He wanted to go back to America. Sorry we had ever moved here. We held him and let him get it all out, prayed together, and shared some stories. We spent a lot of time teaching him that he is now a threat to Satan's kingdom, because he has been used powerfully in the last two weeks to encourage the rest of the family as we have each hit our own emotional brick walls. He has graduated from child to warrior, private first class, and he drew blood. He got it. We shared a few stories about my days at the Air Force Academy (he really liked these), how for 6 weeks the upper class cadets make it their full-time job to get the weak ones to quit. Those who survive the last "hell week" which ends with a difficult march into the hills, are rewarded a ceremony and the prized "prop and wings", a pin which symbolizes authentic cadet status. Quitting in week one, two, or three erases the opportunity to go on. Even making it half-way up the hill with the rest of your comrades still is worthless. Finishing strong is everything. And yet, this only prepares and propells the cadet into another full year of oppression by the upperclass cadets, followed by three more years of difficult academic loads. But at the end, the reward of being an officer, a leader, and a warrior for our country.

It was with this mindset that I woke up this morning. Exhausted and drained from the hauling, lifting, and fighting for our family.

I had been reading Erwin McManus' book The Barbarian Way over the last several months, and I picked it up again. Here is what God had in store as I read:

"Jesus leads us into the heart of the dark kingdom, into the soul of what is most evil. He takes us where mankind has chosen to live. He calls us to where the darkness has made those who wander there desparate for light. He leads us as warriors of light to risk our lives for the deliverance of others. Again, our own weapons are love, hope, and faith, and they are our only defense. Yet we above all know that they and only they liberate us and fulfill the deepest longings of our souls."

We are here, not to set up shop, but to set up God's kindgom in the darkness. We must travel light, and be prepared to move on. Watching our son choose to turn agony and tears from oppression into laughter and another day of encouragement drove the point home for me.

Jesus describes it as "the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it" (Matt 11:12) underscores the battle. Jesus was referring to the message that John the Baptist brought, that the physical kingdom was replaced by a spiritual one. That the weapons of the Isrealites had been traded in for the weapons of faith, hope, and love.

In God's kindom, location, status, and age are irrelevant. A pastor's counseling session, talking to a neighbor, mission field, or business boardroom are all encompassed by the battlefield. Church members fight alongside their pastor. And a child can wield these weapons with the most educated seminary graduate.

Pray for more faith, that we will raise the shield together for our King!