Love Was a Battlefield in Iraq
5/31/2015
“As
the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for
Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare for his
arrival. But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus because he was on
his way to Jerusalem. When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, ‘Lord,
should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?’ But Jesus rebuked them
saying, ‘You don’t realize what your hearts are like. For the Son of Man has
not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save them.’ So they went on to
another village “---Luke 9:51-56
“Then
he (King Ahab) sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They
found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, ‘Man of God, the
king has commanded you to come down with us.”
But
Elijah replied to the captain, ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from
heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!’ Then fire fell from heaven and
killed them all
So
the king sent another captain with fifty men. The captain said to him, ‘Man of
God, the king demands that you come down at once.’
Elijah
replied, ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you
and your fifty men!’ And again the fire of God fell from heaven and killed them
all.
Once
more the king sent a third captain with fifty men. But this time the captain
went up the hill and fell on his knees before Elijah. He pleaded with him, ‘O
man of God, please spare my life and the lives of these, your fifty servants.
See how the fire from heaven came down and destroyed the first two groups. But
now please spare my life!’
Then
the angel of the LORD said to Elijah, ‘Go down with him and don’t be afraid of
him.’ So Elijah got up and went with him to the king.” –2 Kings 1:9-15
From
the above passages I see and love the fact that the bible is a very brutal
book. People see organized religion in the world and they see a humble Christ
on a cross with a sad face and twisted body, assuming that he was weak. That is
very far from the stories painted about him in the bible. Religion has made
either an excuse for power hungry men to manipulate weaker men of society, as
it tries to usurp human rights and dignity from such men (of whom the bible
said were just as equally created in the image of God), or it has taken the
true warrior-king attributes of a mighty God and his messiah, and made them
both a weakling. Both are utter blasphemies.
In
the first passage, we see a rejected king, about to walk his final journey to
his destiny on the cross. His disciples had spent enough time with Jesus, that
they were not rebuked because of their lack of faith, but because their hearts
were not yet pure in the knowledge of Jesus’s mission on earth. I believe that
their faith was so pure at this point, that they could have moved mountains if
they had been given the permission from the Almighty.
In
the second verse we see a prophet, named Elijah, take a stand against an Evil
Israeli king. The setting was thousands of years before Jesus’s times. King
Ahab not only carried a kingdom that perverted justice for the poor, had zero
mercy, and took widow’s property for bribes, but this was the first kingdom
which introduced child sacrifice as part of a pagan worship. I think the
burning of a hundred soldiers with lightning (the fire from heaven) was fair
vengeance on a brutal king who had betrayed his office of trust and the
citizens of whom God had placed underneath his authority.
You
see, the Christian message is all about a kingdom. It’s all about a just king.
It’s about a king who will one day bring retribution to the wicked. He will one
day cause the good to no longer suffer in the world, but the good will actually
rule the world alongside God’s messiah. And who are the good? The best example
is the example of the criminal who was executed next to Christ, and who placed
his faith in the messiah and asked, “Please Lord, remember me when you come in
your kingdom!” Jesus promised him that that very day this condemned criminal
would be in Paradise. You see, religion is about works. Faith is about
believing something has already been done on your behalf; there is no need for
work, but only a celebration and the freedom to live your life in joy until you
one day go to be with your King, forever…
So
what is the point of this preaching and what does it have to do with my time in
Iraq? It has everything to do with it. While I was there I felt such a huge
evilness in my heart, or in my spirit that I was actually angry with God, and I
one day took my bible out of my living quarters and threw it outside into the
sand, hoping that a strong easterly wind would carry it away from my life and
my heart forever. My heart raged. My heart roared like a lion. I did not have
the answers to my questions and my throwing away of my bible was my way of
being defiant to the one who sits on the highest heavenly throne. Elijah called
down fire on the bodies of mighty men, but there was already a fire burning on
the inside of my heart.
Obviously,
I am not in that place anymore. This was nearly 7 years ago and I have since
walked with my LORD through the deepest abyss and back. I’ve realized that God
is love. I realized that in this world, we/I will experience the greatest of
pains, hell, tribulations, sadness and disappointments. There are no demons in
this world back then, or now, who can keep me from the love and protection of
Christ.
I
always pray for my kids. I always pray that when I am not around, that they are
protected. I tell my son that we are Jesus’s boys. What that means is that no
matter what happens to either one of us, we will always be together. I will
always be there and I will always love him. I always pray that my adult
daughter will return to me and forgive me for not being there the way that she
needed me to be there when she was younger. I pray that she will one day
realize that there is a higher being who loves her more than anyone could
possibly love her. There is no need now, or will there ever be a need for her
to find love with another human soul, as far as in the sense of making her feel
the bliss that only her creator can give her.
While
I was in Iraq, I wondered how my heart could rage so much. Where I was located,
was about 50 miles northeast of the city of Baghdad. It took me awhile to realize
that if the bible is correct, that is exactly where hell has reigned for ages
and ages. It is the real life pandemonium. My heart was sensing the spiritual
warfare that has been around since Elijah called fire on the troops of a wicked
king; since Jesus had to rebuke his disciples from executing humans in the name
of God; and since before the time when evil spirits in the world first tempted
mankind into thinking we could do it all without God. Iraq is the location for
the ancient Babylon. I have often wondered if we as American Veterans who came
from Iraq were not only effected by the psychological disorder called, Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, but if many of us were also touched by a very evil
spiritual environment based on the one I have described.
“We are strong. No one
can tell us we’re wrong. Searching our hearts for so long, both of us knowing
love is a battlefield.” –Pat Benatar. Love is a Battlefield
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