Beaten with Few Stripes

A colleague once respectfully asked what qualified me to write a book on spiritual warfare. As a mentor, like-minded in the faith, she hoped to prepare me to defend myself should a critic pose the same question with less courtesy.[1]


While I fully appreciate the gesture, (and told her so) I find it somewhat sad that the question need be asked in the first place. When I was in the Army, no one doubted my qualifications for defending the country. My uniform spoke for me. It was understood that I was lean, mean, and green!


As a submitted member of an established faith community, it should also be understood that I have been duly mentored and discipled in the finer spiritual arts. Of course, such is not always the case, especially with regard to spiritual warfare, and if believers get any training at all, it is acquired outside of the covering of the local body. Therein lays the need for credentials—to prove the validity of these “out-of-body” experiences.


At any rate, I answered the woman’s question with a glib, “School of Hard Knocks.” She acknowledged my point with a nod but went on to suggest courses to build up a marketable credibility.


I happily intend to do what ever necessary to protect my readers, but ink and paper are cheap. My treasure lies in heaven and I got a spiritual chest full of purple hearts for fifty years of pummeling at the hands of the Emptier.


How did I ever learn to fight back? The hard way, of course! Our big sister, Eve taught us that we acquire knowledge of good and evil through sin.[2] Wouldn’t it have been so much easier if God had just imprinted this information on our brains cells? He’s a tough love Advocate, however, and only occasionally lets us slide. For the rest of the journey, we pretty much learn through pain and experience. As we gain wisdom and understanding, we earn more opportunities for pain and experience.[3] It all starts at birth, when we get that slap on the fanny for surviving nine months in a water balloon.


No one, save the Son of God, Himself, boasts a unique childhood. Humankind shares this parallel experience with similar degrees of suffering, lived out in personalized scenarios. Childhood, or life for that matter, rarely generates the unprecedented events we imagine. Our pain is relative, in as much as we witness, or don’t witness, the distress of others.
[1] 1 Peter 3:15
[2] Genesis 3:1-5
[3] Luke 12:48