“Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s.” 2 Chronicles 20:15
Thus spoke the Spirit through a man named Jahaziel as Judah faced a terrifying, seemingly undefeatable enemy.
Yesterday arrived with clear enemies hovering. Our beloved, high-energy 20 pound Yorkie, only 7 years old, was awaking to a “spinal series” at the Auburn vet school clinic to determine if she had a herniated disc. And I thought you could only feel this kind of emotion when your children were sick.
I read this by Kevin DeYoung in his book The Good News We Almost Forgot: “If we were in a physical war, we would scout out our enemies’ positions each morning and plan carefully for possible attacks and counterattacks. But when it comes to spiritual battle, we suffer from gross overconfidence. Our sworn enemies — the flesh, the world, and the Devil — are not at rest, so neither should we be.” He continues to say that the best preparation for the daily spiritual battle is prayer.
DeYoung goes on to point out that “Amen” is not short for “prayer over” but means “This is sure to be!” He says, “Think of that next time you “Amen” your prayer. God is so gracious that He is more willing to hear our requests than we are sure that we actually want what we pray for.”
As it turned out, yesterday’s battle raged on many fronts. The temptation to just sit down in the middle of the floor and throw a major self-pity-party was high. My mom awoke very sick, hardly able to take three steps without a stabbing pain in her back flattening her. I waited to hear from the doctor. I encouraged her to try to get in to see her doctor. Fear beckoned me to enter its dark cave. Worry hovered like a swarm of angry hornets, threatening to cover me.
And I prayed. And not only prayed, but invited others to pray too. Scripture calls us to invite others to join us in spiritual battle.
Abbey’s doctor called and said the MRI suggested surgery for something pressing on her spinal cord. I called my husband, who agreed — we should go ahead. My mom’s doctor called and said there were too few doctors there today and we should go to an urgent care clinic. (Visions of swarms of sick people flew in my head!) We walked into a pristine waiting room where — no one — was waiting. Peace wrapped itself around me.
An hour later, my Mom and I left the clinic with a diagnosis of acute inflammation of the sacro-iliac joint and some meds to help. Around the same time, Abbey’s neurosurgeon (I know, a neurosurgeon for a dog?) called. She was awake. The surgery was involved. He had found something wrapped around a nerve. He had decompressed the disc. I was trying to concentrate on Atlanta traffic, so I didn’t hear a lot of what he said. I did hear the words “recover” and “back to her old self.”
As C.S. Lewis would say, “Aslan is on the move!” As the Christmas season (which is not yet over, by the way:) reminds us, we are not alone to fight daily battles or worse. God came near. And sometimes it is knowing that nearness and believing that even when we don’t know how to pray or aren’t sure what we are praying for is possible, God wants to hear our requests and plans to meet us in the midst of them. AMEN!
