There's a war going on ...

So by year's end the United States troops will be out of Iraq and a war that has been part of our daily experience in one way or another will have been brought to an end.  But the wars nevertheless go ... in Afghanistan and other parts of the world ... and the men and women of our military are involved and often at great risk.
There's always a war going on ... somewhere.  
The war that presses harshly against my life ... the war that never ends ... the war that has me on the front lines 24/7 ... the war from which I can take no furlough ... the war of wars ... is the war within.  Paul cries out in from the battlefield of his inner war ... "What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

In his battlefield diary Paul writes, " For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ... For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ... So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. "


My battlefield diary expresses the same thing ... though not nearly as clearly and concisely as does that of Paul.  


And my cry is an echo of his ... "What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

It is by the grace of God that the Good News of God in Christ Jesus has reached my ears and heart and life so that I am empowered by the Holy Spirit to say and confess with Paul ... "Thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!"

Monday, Monday!  A new day ... a new week ... but the same old battle and war.   However, in the midst of the battle and war there is also victory and peace in Christ Jesus.  It is as constant as the war ... as 24/7 as the war.  In fact, the life that is ours in Christ is the reason there is "the war."  Without the new life we have in Christ, without our being a new creation through faith in Christ, without the "new man" coming forth from the waters of Holy Baptism ... there would be no war.

So strange as it may seem ... and as weird as it may sound ... I am thankful for the war that is raging within.  It means for me that the "new man" in Christ is alive and well by the power of the Spirit and the grace of God through the nourishing food of Word and Sacrament ... and the "old man," my old sinful nature, does not hold sway, does not have control, does not have the last word.  Christ gives the last word, Christ is the last word ... He is life and He is salvation.  

"Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side."