Make no mistake, there is a war raging each and every day, just as it has been since the time of Creation. The battle is waged for either the corruption or the preservation of the souls of those whom God has created. The tactics used are often subtle, and the battle is sometimes not readily evident to those who are not attuned to their spiritual selves. Yet the conflict is very real, spiritual warfare and the toll that it has taken, and continues to take upon humanity is very real, and either loss or victory is for the greatest stakes imaginable.
We are confronted each day with choices about how we will conduct ourselves, and what that conduct will convey to others about our beliefs. It may be a situation where we must choose between what we know to be wrong or right, it may be a conversation where we must choose to either stand up for what we believe or allow others to run roughshod over us without saying a word, or it may simply be choosing to remain in the presence of influences that we know to be morally detrimental to us. All of these situations have the potential to either affirm or deny our beliefs in our own sight, the way we are viewed by others, and in what is witnessed by almighty God. There is no mortal that we need ever fear in these conflicts. It is true that others could seek to do us harm when our beliefs conflict with their desires and agendas. Over the life of the Church many have become martyrs because they clung to what they believed, yet even in those instances of human cruelty and death, there was still victory. We do not like to think of physical death, it can be a fearful thing if we let ourselves forget that Christ has already overcome that for us. Yet that is what He did, and in so doing gave us every reason to believe and be fearless in our approach to the struggles and battles of this life. It is God’s judgement alone that we must fear, because of the pure truth that we will one day be confronted with. There is nothing on that day that will not be revealed. This is not a matter of fearing God because of the human obsession with guilt that sometimes comes about, we need to be concerned with an encounter with a purity of truth that we have never yet experienced, and so should strive to be prepared as best we can for the judgement that will follow. That is not to say we should expect perfection, most of us can pretty much put that one to rest because we are all sinners. Yet, we should still strive, just like children who seek to please their parent because they do not wish to disappoint them, knowing that they are still loved in spite of their imperfections. This is the love that God seeks from each of us, and that we need to pursue each and every day.
We are each of us special in God’s eyes, and He values each of us enough to have made the ultimate sacrifice for us. Not a hair on our heads is not accounted for by Him, not a struggle endured for love of Him is ever forgotten, and no one who has sacrificed for Him in emulating His sacrifice for us will ever go unacknowledged. Others will disappoint us in this life, they will cause us pain at times, and will perhaps cause us to grieve, that is the nature of humanity. None of that matters when we are focused on Him.
The Deacons Bench 