Ever seen the movie Friday Night Lights? One of the best football movies ever made, it tells the true story of the 1988 Permian Panthers and their quest for a Texas State Championship. I’ll play the spoiler here: they don’t get it. They get into the playoffs by a coin-toss, grind out victory after victory, only to lose to Dallas-Carter in the Astrodome. About two feet short of the goal-line, less than a yard from paydirt, from victory, triumph, exultation!
You see, and this may come as a surprise, you don’t always win... and what are you going to do when you don’t? Sometimes you fail, sometimes you lose the fight, sometimes fear takes over and faith goes out the window. And this moment slips away, lost forevermore. Sometimes you get beaten, you get bruised, you get bloody, with no discernible difference made in the lives of those you’re fighting for— including your own. What will you do then? What kind of man or woman do you want to be? Because this, my friends, is the ultimate issue at stake in our Story.
How does God develop the heart of a Warrior and Warrior-maiden in His Sons and Daughters— an unyielding heart, a persevering heart, a heart relentless in its pursuit of Jesus, the mighty Warrior in whose image we are made, a heart faithful and fierce to the very End? By fierce I don’t mean unkind, I don’t mean ugly or arrogant or violent necessarily, though there is a time and a place to literally ‘go to War’ for what you love. To protect it and preserve it. I do not mean the stubbornness of the American jackass; what I do mean is aggressive, tenacious, a pit-bull like tenacity. You are going to need something like this, exactly like this, to endure... until the Kingdom comes.
I don’t necessarily like this; that is, the answer I’m about to give you. But it is what it is. Honestly, there’s a part of me which hates this, and another part which loves it. How does God develop the Warrior-heart within us? Hardship. Suffering. The author of Hebrews tells us Jesus “learned obedience from the things which He suffered” {5:8b}; as Peterson puts it, “He learned trusting-obedience by what He suffered, just as we do” {The Message}. Hardship, suffering, trial and battle. What better way than to put us in situation after situation where we are forced to fight for what is right and beautiful and true, where we are forced to become dangerous for good. Forced to depend so utterly and completely upon our Abba that His Cause becomes our Cause, His King our King, His heart for the broken and the bruised ours. Now we’re getting somewhere in the Battle for Freedom and Life.
Once again, this is not a game for little children, or the uninterested and unaware. This is a Battle for the hearts of humanity... and the stakes are no less than eternal in nature. And that is reality.
Ric Webb
Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community
www.hjcommunity.org
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