When we say, we must “overcome,” the images that most often come to mind are military ones of battlefields, armor, weapons, and strategies. We think of “spiritual warfare” as being against outside attack forces and of conquering as confronting and eliminating the “enemy” with swords and spears, armor and chain mail.
While it is true that we “wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world,” we also war against an enemy even subtler. As Pogo said, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.”
The enemy can be our impatience, our propensity to quit before the job is finished, because we expect immediate results. Often the enemy is our trust in what is evident instead of what is unseen. Many times the enemy is our expecting to accomplish Kingdom work with the earth’s systems, or to interpret God’s blessing in material terms. Most things of true value require what we least like to do—to wait, and most eternal lessons are learned by waiting with persistence, patience, and, yes, pain.
Ann Smith, a dear friend and mentor of ours who is half through her tenth decade, told us this week that she has chosen her guiding objective for this part of her journey; it is this: To nurture a “passionate sense of potential” in all situations and with all people. She says this means that she will try to see clearly what is, then beyond what is to the potential, and finally, to relate to each person or situation based on the potential, nourishing what could be.
Her eyes danced as she said she had discovered a hymn she hadn’t known and had taken its text as her living joy or her life’s last statement, whichever this decade might hold. When I found it, I loved this hymn, too, and leave it for fuel for thought for all who would overcome!
In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree,
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that wants to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
--Natalie Sleeth © Hope Pub. 1986
