POWs

edited from Spiritual ethoughts Monthly installment lisadelay.com

Sometimes I wonder if non-believers think that Christianity is “no fun”, or in most ways unappealing, because instead of living the abundant life Jesus brought from heaven to earth, Christians have become Prisoners of War in our battle of Good and Evil. Do Christians seem a bit dull? Do they seem sort of nasty? Do they seem like whiners? Do they pick on each other? Do they, and do you, down deep in your heart secretly wish for more? We’ve sort of been captured.


It’s not that we’ve become prisoners because our enemy is more powerful, but we’ve willing walking into a prison camp of sorts. Or more likely, we’ve subtly slipped into a cell of lethargy. For some, this happens in the same way a coal chills as it is separated the warmth of live briquettes. It boils down to authentic accountability. The masks stay on, and so no one knows the real struggles. Sometimes we are simply prisoners in a chamber where the doors are already wide open. We merely stay where we are most comfortable.


Regardless of the manner in which it happens, from time to time, the abundant life is not the life we live. Troubles crowd in, doubt sways us, business steals us away, illness plagues us, sin besets us, people hurt us, or in some other ways we lose focus. Some way we miss that our source of life abundant is the only sate for our thirst. Jesus, our Living Water, is the Fountain we must ingest frequently, daily. We don’t do it to satisfy a checklist, but to quench ourselves. To live.


It’s no wonder so many Christians are Missing in Action, or Prisoners of War. We strive so hard to keep a grip on all the moving parts of our lives, and the whole time, we slip into the dehydrated, mundane, un-abundant, and too-thirsty-too-soon-life without the best water.


I know this is the bigger war at stake. It is the more common one. The one between Good and Evil is fought in the skirmishes on the battlefields of Self firstly, and most frequently. These often-overlooked tussles lead to the bigger theaters of combat, which are the powerful choices, the ones that can bring true destruction or restoration in one's life. Victory in the small continual contests are really the only way we can avoid having to fight and lose the worst wars. We were never meant to be prisoners. Jesus came to set us free. We can be free indeed.