Daily Archive

Who is this glorious King? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, the powerful warrior. Psalm 24:8 (NCV)

It’s a rather peculiar phenomenon in the animal kingdom. The Martin will spend days building her nest in preparation for laying eggs and raising their young. Soon after that, a sparrow may decide that the martin nest looks like a pretty cool abode and take it over. That’s right, the little, calm looking; harmless sparrow steals the nest from the Martin. Sometimes even pushing eggs or newly hatched young out onto the ground. But the sparrow’s home isn’t secure either. Starlings have been known to come in and take over the nest the sparrow stole from the Martin!

The problem in this picture is that Martin and Sparrow had the ability to build their home, but not defend it. What the Martin needs is someone to fight on their behalf. Someone to defend all they’ve worked for, to protect their investment.

Like the Martin, each of us sets out to make a life for ourselves. It may not necessarily be a conscious thought, but in the backrooms of our minds we have an idea of what we’d like life to look like. Few of us include, in those plans, divorce, bankruptcy, cancer or the untimely death of a loved one.

The plans we have though are often disrupted, diverted or destroyed by life. The Sparrows and Starlings of life attack us. We didn’t plan on becoming addicted to drugs. We didn’t plan on the affair happening, it just did. We didn’t include in our plans the rebellious child or the disinterested spouse.

Like the Martin, what we need is a defender. Someone who can protect us from the attacks of evil in our lives. Someone who can walk us through the battle ground to the others side. Each of us needs someone we can call on when doubt, worry, anger and frustration raise their ugly heads.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had someone like that to call on in our time of distress? Religion will try to tell you it has the answer. Politicians have plenty of ideas of how funding can solve this problem or that. Friends and family always seem to have advice. But what we need is a warrior we can count on. Someone who not only knows how to wage battle against the evil one, but knows how to win.

The Psalmist says, ‘The Lord is a powerful warrior’. Most scholars agree that the ‘Lord’ in this passage not only refers to God the Father, but points towards Jesus Christ, his Son. The word picture is clear. There are many things along the path we call life that are there to distract us and destroy our dreams. Reliance on our mighty warrior, Jesus Christ, assures us that even though the battle may be tough, he will fight for us. He is a mighty warrior who believes in us and sees us as worth fighting for.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, as I enter the battle of life ahead of me I see many enemies. Many who are intent on taking away my peace, my trust, my future. Thank you for being a mighty warrior I can count on in the midst of battle. Amen.