God's Navy Seals

As we sit in the comfort of our warm homes, our quiet existence of 'picket fences', cable TV, home shopping networks, of fun times, parties and vacations, there are men and women who have forsaken all of that to go into months of incredibly difficult disciplined and often painful training and then go into battle, face the horrors of war, and risk injury or even death in order to confront and overcome enemies that threaten our freedoms, our liberties, our way of life. Why would they do that? When life could be so much easier, they jump with amazing courage into the front lines of the battle without hesitation. Whether we agree with their cause or not, we have to admire their courage, their bravery, their willingness to face enormous hardship in order to protect that which they believe to be right   and good.

In that context, imagine, if you will, an alternate reality where there are thousands of different races, species, and planets. Imagine that we are 'beings of light' who have been given an opportunity to enter the physical realm and either live a simple easy life of basic comfort on one of those planets, or, alternately, join the battle between good and evil, to become part of an elite force, to fight against demons, to either fall before an evil enemy or cut them down with the sword of the Spirit! What would you do? Would you take the easy road and live a simple good life, or rise up, put on the armor of God and go into battle? The few, the courageous, the willing, run headlong into battle, knowing that, if they survive, they will be rewarded with honor and positions of authority and noble responsibility, having proven that they can overcome evil and therefore having the qualifications required to rule and reign with Him.

Now imagine that YOU have made the choice to take the hard road. Imagine that you chose to be dropped into battle with the additional knowledge that you will have to face that battle with no memory of your mission, of your past, of your heritage, and that only faith in God can lead you to victory. It's a high stakes gamble, because if you lose, the consequences are severe, but if you win, the prize is beyond earthly comprehension. Imagine that you are living this now, that your journey in this evil, corrupt, magnificent, amazing world is your time to shine... your time to prove what you are made of, your time to rise up against the odds and snatch victory from the forces of darkness! What if this is not just a wild fantasy? What if you are a 'being of light' that has chosen to become part of God's 'Navy Seals'? If you became aware that you had chosen to live life on the front lines (and often behind enemy lines), if you awakened to your true identity, how would you live your life differently?

Would you be a warrior for good or just sit on the sidelines? Would you fight with all you have for love, right, truth, and justice or retreat to your sofa watching audio visual junk food while the world around you descends into chaos? Would you wake each morning seeking the wisdom and guidance needed to confront the challenges of the day or be just too busy to spend time with God? Would you stand tall as a faithful ambassador of Christ, living with honor, courage, integrity, and character, reaching out in love and helping those in need, honoring and giving praise to God, or would you live life for your own aggrandizement? Would you open the eyes of the spiritually blind, heal the spiritually lame, and lead the lost to the way, the truth, and the life, the Lord of Creation? Christ himself promised that if we are faithful in the small things given us to do in this world, we will be given great responsibility and authority in the new kingdom.

Could this be one possible explanation as to why we live in such an often difficult and challenging world? Is life tough? So is boot camp. Does life seem unfair? War is not fair... we are in an epic battle between good and evil! Are you wounded and in pain? Seek the great medic, healer and bringer of life. It's not just about you and your 'prosperity'. It is about the choices you make and how you impact those around you. Will you seek to serve God with honor, or serve yourself? Whether this is the real back story or not, we may not know until we cross over, but we do know that this life is our testing ground. We will show what we are made of... for better or worse. Worried that you have fallen short? That is why Jesus came and died for us sinners, so that we could be set free from sin by repenting and changing for the better, so stand up and get back into the fight! Now is the time. Awake, you that sleep. Arise, and fight the good fight. When that final day comes and your life is laid bare for all to see, may you, like Paul, be able to say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing."

Here is a challenge...  Ask yourself right now, how would you live life differently if you knew that you were a member of God's 'Elite Force', His 'Seal Team 7'? Take out a piece of paper and write down at least 5 -10 things you would do to sharpen your spiritual skills, increase your effectiveness at overcoming evil and doing good, and be the best you can be (i.e. like New Years resolutions... if you will), then commit to it! Make this an ongoing, periodic, progressive process, becoming better every day!

You are God's Warrior!

 "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 

No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." 

II Timothy 2:3,4

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

II Corinthians 10:3,4

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

Ephesians 6:10-13

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.  Let all that you do be done in love.

I Corinthians 16:13,14

Spontaneity!

If I was asked to sum up in one word, what is the key to being more creative, that word would be 'spontaneity'. We are made to be creative... to grow, to learn, to experiment, to try new things, and to make the world a better place. We have been given everything we need to be highly creative! We just need to release who we are from our constructed box of who we appear to be.

Why do we become someone other than our free and joyful creative self? The answers are legion, but the common thread is fear. Fear of not being accepted, not being liked, being perceived as strange or different, fear of failure, etc. etc. etc. So how do we get rid of fear? The Book of Life says, "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear". In Hebrew, the root of the word "love" is "I give". When our attitude is one of wanting to do good, to give, to better the world around us, when we do that fully we lose our consciousness of self. All we care about is increasing the amount of joy and decreasing the amount of suffering in the world we can affect, then the self no longer matters. When we know that we are loved infinitely by the only one who can love us infinitely, we can give without reservation, without fear. That is the core of the saying, "You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free". When we are no longer self focused, we are no longer self conscious. When we are no longer self conscious, we don't care if others judge us, because we know in our heart we are innocent of all charges, so we give anyway, fearlessly.

Living fearlessly, we are free to be ourselves, our child-like self. Spontaneity is just the free expression of who we are. Nobody to impress... Nobody to fear. Just be free.

Challenge yourself. Find a stubborn problem. Find something wrong, something that needs fixing. Next, love. Love the people that are hurt by this problem (that could include yourself, but ideally, it's not all about you). Then, go at it. Explore the elements that affect it. What makes it worse? What if you do the opposite? What makes it better? What if you do that 10 times as much? If you could magically achieve the perfect solution, what would it look like? If you were the problem, what would you 'be afraid of' that would threaten your existence? Jump around, in and out, turn the problem on its head, shake it up, and see what comes out. There is a solution. There is a way to make it better. Ask God. Pray and anticipate results. Ask a child. Listen. Look at nature... the brilliance of the creation leads scientists to new innovations on a daily basis. The answer will come.

When the answer comes, the next level of courage is to act. You could revel in the joy that comes from realizing the solution, and then go back to being a couch potato. Not good. The real joy comes from doing it. Start small if you need to. Make a prototype. Do a test run. Make a 'proof of concept model'. Test out the theory and see what happens. Did it solve the problem? Awesome! Did it fail to solve it? Great! Learn, adjust, and try again. The answer exists... the challenge of the explorer is to find that uncharted territory and make a map. Drive the world around you to a better place and enjoy the ride! Life can be a wondrous experience! Choose wonder!