Know No

“But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth,

I

will

bring

You

back…”

– Nehemiah 1:9

I was walking this morning and for some unknown reason, my mind wandered onto the idea of heroes.

I think the life of a superhero would be incredibly fun.  Obviously.  Unfortunately, my parents were no fun and I did not suffer a single incident in my childhood involving full immersion in any type of radioactive substance.  #thestruggle…

Not that uranium isotopes do a hero make, but every great hero has some sort of junk happen to them which they turn into good.

Batman’s parents die so he beats up bad guys at night.

Spiderman gets bit by a freaky spider and shoots silly string out of his wrists at people.

Fun stuff.

Every hero also has a moment when it becomes exceedingly hard and we are not quite sure if the hero can pull through.

Will he save the world?

Will she realize she is the lost princess?

Will they make it in time?

Will they ever get to build a snowman?

And then they do.

It is emotional and victory and love and usually kiss-kiss hug-hug.  We watch it and are like, oh my goodness!  That was awesome.  Woody did not end up getting incinerated!

In reality however, the big last moment means so much because of all the moments before it.

I heard this idea once explained to me by a sweaty bishop.  He was saying that the Christian life is a little like a boxing match…

If you have ever watched a fight before, a match is never just one fight.  There is a main event, but before the title fight, you have a few undercard fights.  These are lesser-known boxers, the undercards, who go out, do their thing, and win a few rounds.  They are good, but everyone knows, they are not the champs.

In the meantime, the main event boxers are not sitting around, playing games and losing themselves in their iPhones.  They are suiting up.

In each locker room, they are situating all their equipment, getting their hands taped, Gloves just right, Warming up, getting their head on straight, because very soon, they are going to hear the bell ring.

The announcer will thunder their name and there will be no more time to prepare.  All the lights will be on them.  If they are not ready, the announcer is going to be calling and they will be sitting there, Von Trapping it up.  No one is going to come out because they are not ready.

Boxers, Heroes and Saints are not important by accident.  They matter because their stories are filled with a thousand little moments, times they could have given up, yet they remained and pushed and clawed in the mud of tragedy and came out the other side.

But the thing that we forget with the most ease-that modern America seems to culturally numb us all to-is that we are not Undercards.

In the book of Ephesians it says that: “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.”

The word used for battle in the actual Hebrew is not…nice.  It is not a battle where someone is shooting arrows at each other across a sunny, grassy field in the spring.  The word given is the same for describing a desperate struggle.  The image is of fighting, in the mud with bare knuckles, enemies that on our own we would have no hope of slaying.

This is our picture because we, who have been tossed aside by everything, have found a love in Christ that is greater than the sum of any good we could ever do.  That no matter what we think counts us out, we have a God that breaks through it all, every moment if He has too, to love us in wildly undeserved ways.

A love that nothing on earth, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8)

This love inside us was put there for us to not store it, but to unleash it back onto a world that is starving for it.  Because there are things in this world that we were meant to grapple by the ankles, pull down into the mud and fight with all our might.  There are things in this world that we are meant to see and then feel a fire inside us as we stand and mutter back, “No.  No more.  I will not let this keep happening.”

Each of us has a “No” in our lives.  Some have found it, some will find it soon, but all of us have felt those moments.  Those times when we see or hear or experience something and everything in us speaks: No.

I will not walk away from these orphans.

I will not let children be sold for sex.

I will not let the hungry starve.

I will not let the fatherless in my city go another day without a role model.

I will not let young girls see magazine covers and not explain the evil side of greed and airbrushing.

I will not hold my fists tight around my excess money.

I will not…

…?

The awesome Dan Allendar said once that, “If there is nothing in your life that you will give up your life for, there is nothing you will ever live for.”

What will be your no?  And then, how will you start getting your hands taped up now?  Your gloves on now?

Someday the doors will open and God will unleash you on the world.  What will you do?

I pray that for you, for you on the opposite side of this flickering screen, that for you, I pray the world feels the impact of that fire God placed inside you.

I pray that you raise up Holy, God-given fists and do not hesitate.  That in your moment, you narrow your eyes and throw the punches you were born to throw.

Because we need you.