You Matter

Rallied by one young prince's victory, a thousand men of the Israelite nation rush from their hiding places, armed with sticks and shovels, to pursue and to destroy their enemies. Successfully.

Ranks of young men file into ships, to land at Normandy Beach and to scramble and battle their way inland in a desperate struggle to free Europe.

Suicide bombers train for days, weeks--only to destroy themselves in a final explosion for what they believe is the right.

We are obsessed, we humans, with being part of something bigger than ourselves. With fighting for the right. With the ideal of the stalwart hero who battles and struggles and finally, though his death or through his life, wins. We want this. We crave it. It is part of both our deepest fears and our deepest dreams. It constantly drives us upward toward glory, or downward toward greatest loss. 

Because we are. We are part of Something Bigger. We do fight for it. Every day. 

The question is: What? What am I fighting for? Am I the hero fighting to free Europe, to rescue Israel from the Philistines? Or am I the suicide bomber who destroys not only others, but himself, in a blaze of terror?

There are only two sides. The side that destroys, and the Side that renews. The side that wounds, and the Side that heals. And one of the essences of the Gospel is just this:

YOU MATTER.

Your life matters. Your choices matter. YOU matter. More than you can ever dream. Because in every choice, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant, you fight. Because every time you choose the good, evil loses. 

And so in a hundred little choices, in a hundred little prayers, in a hundred little surrenders every day...we fight.

By His grace, choose the good.

"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." (1 Tim. 6:12)