The Face of Warfare

Recently, National Geographic aired a documentary made by two photo journalists who, for a year, followed the same detachment of US troops deployed in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. It was raw and poignant, and showed the face of warfare: its boredom, its filth, its danger, its courage, its casualties, its sorrow, its frustration, its injustice. Over forty men died there either taking or holding ground only to have our forces abandon these positions at a later date. 

It broke my heart to watch it.  Many of the men who made it back carried deep scars and claimed they had yet to reconcile everything they saw or did.  And that’s when it struck me how similar spiritual warfare is to its physical counterpart.

Like in Afghanistan, we are all fighting a war, a spiritual war that generally thrusts us into combat, daily, and for which we need courage. And the causalities are many: broken marriages, drug addiction, loss of jobs and home, loss of health.  And sometimes we conquer enemy territory at great cost only to relinquish it at a later date, like a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for years only to succumb, unexpectedly. And often we are left with scars. And Satan doesn’t fight fair, either.  He, too, is not above using our children or spouse as shields or fodder. And he hits us when we least expect it.  But unlike Afghanistan, where our soldiers never left their wounded comrades behind, we, in the church, tend to shoot ours or leave them bleeding and unattended.  Instead of compassion, we judge.  Instead of love, we ostracize. 

When is the church going to learn we must stick together?  When one falls, we must be there to pick him up, to encourage, to love, to nurse back to health; but never, never to abandon.

War is ugly, and dangerous, and hurtful.  All war.  And just as the “War on Terror” isn’t going away any time soon, so too, spiritual warfare is here to stay. The Bible says we have an enemy who hates us; one who seeks to “steal, kill and destroy.” No matter what our denomination, believers in Jesus must stick together like never before, and at all costs, care for our wounded.

Until next week,

Sylvia