The hope – The Arrow Preacher

Why Can’t I Drive The Car?

Have you ever wondered why your parents told you, ‘no you can’t drive the car.’? The answer is pretty obvious, you’re not ready. We are equally young in our faith. We start off as it says in scripture on the milk, and eventually work our way up to the meat and potatoes. When we are but babies in our mothers arms we are cared for and provided for in everything we may need. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, John 3:16“16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is just the skim of scripture, the milk as it were. This is what you must understand as a baby Christian, but this isn’t where your journey ends, it’s only the beginning. When you become a Christian your true life starts, and everything before it was merely just learning blocks in preschool preparing you for life as a Christian. I myself have experienced many tragedies, traumas, hardships, and heartbreak. There’s also been much joy, and happiness, and blessings along the way. Each and every event in my life at some point in time can be used for me to further the gospel of Jesus Christ. We all have experiences that mold our perspective, and in that we all have our own vantage points, and that uniqueness is a gift from God.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11”12 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: 2 You know that[a] you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb[b] idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus [c]accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are [d]diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works [e]all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by [f]the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”

With each of our gifts and ministries we can be apart of, because we are but babies fresh into the faith, we aren’t ready to focus on our gifts and ministries. It takes time, but we jump in right away and test the waters. As part of our path we are to grow in our walk with Christ, and also in our own gifts. Like any pro athlete, or musician, practice, repetition, and guidance must be used to grow in skill, and to become proficient. Scripture is the same way. We cannot truly excel if we never move beyond the milk. If we are content in baby stage are we truly doing all that we can to bring glory to God?

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 “12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink [g]into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many.”We must understand that before a baby can walk first it must develop strong kneecaps, and the muscles in its legs and hips must grow and develop. As a child grows we accept that we start off slow, and work our way to harder things along the way. Our brains grow and develop as we learn new things, experiences in life form us, shape us, and hopefully we have a strong spiritual family to shape us as God fearing children. But what does this have to do with driving the car? If God wanted us to get right to going out and telling people about Jesus Christ and share the hope and love to all, we would be gifted with all the right things to say, all the scripture we’d ever need, and we’d have all the answers. That’s not the case though. You wouldn’t let a 10 year old drive you to Walmart because they aren’t mature enough, their brains haven’t matured yet, even their size may not be mature enough yet. But when the time is right they will one day come to you and want to learn how to drive and that’s when you look at them and start to train them on drivers safety. The key word in that sentence is train them. When Paul was blinded on the road to Damascus he was gifted by God, the Holy Spirit, and yet he went to be vetted, and trained by the Apostles for 3 years before he started to evangelize, preach, and teach. We must be trained in the ways of the Lord, and we get there by reading, studying, learning about God, and using our trails to help build us for trials down our path that will be harder then before.

With every passing day of doing Yoga the workout will get easier and easier. Eventually I will no longer get anything from them and I can either sit idle, or I can move on to the next step. I wouldn’t want to start off at level 3 or 4, but it forces me to continue to grow. The key word in that sentence is grow. Every day we are on this planet we are given the opportunity to grow closer to God. Every trial we face, every love we have, every skinned knee, job, and loss, and anything else you can think of is an opportunity to grow closer to our Father. We can look at our lives with frustration, and anger, and bitterness if we want to, but ultimately that will not change your situation, nor will it bring you closer to God. If we truly hated our children we could give them the keys at 10 years old and tell them to knock themselves out, and they likely would, literally. The disaster that would come from allowing your child to go through such an experience when they were clearly not ready for it, all you would do is set them up to fail. While there is a lesson for failure, this is not the context for that lesion. All of you new age Yoda fans, sorry, not today. Being good stewards of our gifts, and not squandering them, not being foolish and careless, and being wise and deliberate with the spiritual gifts, and most importantly the gift of life is by far the most important lesion we could learn. Each lesson we face we should try to find the good in it, and understand that our lessons may be a chance to witness to others, or a chance to grow to God, or an attack of the Devil, or an attack of this world. It’s even very possible that the hardships or lessons of your own doing. We are often our greatest enemy causing our own pains along the way. God will usually try to get us to stay away from a particular path, but if we ignore the warning signs and choose to drive straight for the cliff, that’s on us. So before you start throwing a temper tantrum about how unfair God is, ask yourself how you can serve God no matter what circumstance you may find yourself in. And don’t rush into things you’re clearly not ready for, that’s one of those signs saying ‘cliff ahead’, but if you like cliff jumping, by all means, jump away. Just remember, sometimes God will stop you from splatitng on the rocks below, sometimes he wont.

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The Battlefield

The soldier’s armor is silver, it shines, glimmers in the light, freshly polished the scuffs from prior battles are barely noticeable after time and repair. The soldier stands at the front line of the battlefield. The sun glistens off the armor of him and the other soldiers. The sun shines on their backs and ahead of them an army of the hoard. An endless sea of black and death, led by the deceiver himself. The tension is high, the fear is thick and the rattle of the shields can be heard echoing in the valley. The calm before the storm, the moments before the word is given for the silence, the peace before the violence and the carnage begins.

The white flag is raised, the red Celtic cross ripples in the wind. The breath from the soldier is heavy as he closes his eyes for a fleeting moment. The smooth inhale and the hold, before exhaling every bit of air he had left. His eyes open, “protect me my Lord” he pleads to God above and he braces himself for what he knows is coming. His heart is torn knowing the men to his left and right may fall. He knows the battle will claim those he cares for. He knows the battle may very well claim his own life. The appearance of time seems to slow, as he can see the flag dropping forward. He sees a butterfly on the grass in front of him, only for a moment he can see each flap of it’s wings, the wind as it pushes the grass ever so slightly.

The flag drops and the rush starts. He raises his sword, shield in hand, the drum that is his heart pounds as the seconds before the crashing wave hits with the force of a hundred elephants. His shield crashes into the demons. Bones crack, and the blackness all around covers the eyes like a haze, an endless sea of darkness and the light of the sun that once shone so brightly is now gone. The thunder rolls and the rain falls. The sounds of metal on metal, bones on bones, flood the air and nothing but screams and death now fill the air. A sword swings on the soldier and it deflects off his sword. With his shield he hits the demon in the chest and it falls to the grown. He sees it now, lighting the dark sky the flaming arrows begin to rain down. The soldier ducks covering himself with his shield. The arrows never pierce his shield, they only bounce off, he reads the inscription on the inside of his shield. Ephesians 6:16 “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” The soldier stands fast not moving to soon, waiting for the arrows of the Devil to stop for the time being. The Devil you see doesn’t care who gets hurt, doesn’t care about the collateral damage just so long as he’s able to hit one person. His demons do his bidding, no matter those who fall, even their own.

He’s knocked to the ground, kicked from behind; the spike of the spear pierces his armor on his side and punctures his flesh. He moves quickly from the attack and rolls from the following attacks. He swings his sword the blade etched in the steel Psalm 144:1 “Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:” He prays to himself even in the midst’s of battle.” The Holy Spirit anoints me and protects me upon the day of battle, for the day of battle is at hand.” The battle continues, blow after blow defected with shield or sword. The soldier fights with every ounce of strength he has.

The battle turns and the demons start to get the upper hand. One by one soldiers across the field of battle fall. Brothers, fathers, sons, begin to be slain by the Devils minions. Another round of flaming arrows begins to fly in. The soldier hides under his shield, the arrows fall from the sky like rain. The field of battle is now dripping with water, blood, soaked in rivers that flow from the bodies on the ground. The soldier fights one enemy after the next. He continues the battle, slaying one demon after the next. The soldier is hit from behind, a blow that knocks him off his feet. He rolls to see the biggest of the demons he’s seen. The demon places the large foot over the soldier’s chest. Crushing under the weight, the soldier takes his dagger and stabs the demon in the calf. The demon stumbles back, and the soldier takes his sword and throws it. It strikes the demon in the middle of the chest sinking deep into the bone. The demon looks down at the sword before falling straight back.

Retrieving the sword the soldier takes a moment to look around the battlefield. Fighting continues, as the forces of evil are still holding the advantage. A black squall comes from the clouds and everything around its circumference explodes outward. The dust settles quickly, un-naturally, and there in the middle is the Dark Lord himself. Huge, the lord of darkness now stands toe to toe with the soldier. The soldier takes a few steps back to gain a little space. He looks around and he’s surrounded on all sides by darkness. The soldier rushed the prince of darkness and attacked. The soldier is knocked hard to the ground. One blow after the soldier is knocked to the ground, yet he continues to rise. The battle rages on.

The war seems lost, the fallen are many, the Devil continues to slaughter the men in droves. The soldier struggles now to stand. He’s bleeding, he’s battered, he’s bruised, and he struggles to breath. The strength is failing him. His helmet is cracked, his knuckles are black and blue, and he struggles to stand. How the blows of battle have taken their toll. The end seems neigh. When the soldier’s strength is about to fail he looks to the sky and remembers the words. Psalm 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” He takes the sword raising to the sky, “Lord give me power, light up the darkness.” From the sky the darkness parted and the light from the sky shined down upon the sword, the strength of the Holy Spirit filled him and he could feel the power flow through him. He smashed the tip of the sword deep into the ground and the ground split. A light brighter then anything he’d ever seen exploded from the sword and the demon army faded away like a shadow does in the light.

The only demon to stand is the Devil himself, to stand-alone. With renewed strength the soldier walks to stand up to the Devil. The Soldier stands with what little army there was left behind him. Like David before him standing before Goliath, he stands tall. James 4:7 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Standing firm against the Devil and on the wings of the angels he leapt into the sky, sword raised, shield in hand he struck down the form of the Devil. He thrust the sword of Truth into the neck of the Devil, and the form crumbled to the ground.

Emerging victorious the ash settles and he faces the remaining soldiers on the field. The Devils army did extensive damage. The souls lost have never been in vein. Every day souls are lost to one thing or another. Time, disease, accidents, war, or even murder happen every day and children of the King go home. We all have to face the truth, and the truth is the Devil tries to come for us. He tries to tempt us away from what’s right, he tries to cause us to doubt, loose faith, to question everything to include our own existence.

The battlefield we all live in is life. We wake up every day and we go out into the world and we fight our battles. Every day we take hits, we fight the fight. Some days are better then others, some years are great, some are a struggle and some are like living in a fog. We can be beaten down, and some days we bleed. When the battle is no longer what we see on TV how do we get ready for the battle? How do we face the enemy when we meet on the field of battle? In as many months and years we’ve seen pure evil as our nations borders. The battles being waged are no longer on TV over the big pond, but right in our back yard. Incidence like Sandy Hook, Boston, Orlando, Vegas, and now most recently Sutherland Springs, have shows us we are no longer safe from evil. How many countless lives are lost to violence to evil? We can’t ever prepare for every battle we may face, but if we know the Lord and Savior, if we allow God into our hearts and submit ourselves to the King, then it doesn’t matter if we go out and loose the battle (our lives) because we know where we are going. Do not fear death, because death is the beginning of life. While we miss our loved ones who’ve passed we should also rejoice that they are in perfection. Our life is worth every minute because our lives are numbered by the days we’re in it.

It’s not easy to get back up when life has crushed your spirits. It’s not easy to face down the giant when you’re scared. It’s not easy to run into the fray when all hope seems lost. We may not always have the scripture in front of us right when we need it, but we can keep the words at our fingertips. We have Godly counsel to turn to, and if you’re like me, I wear a ring with the Armor of God passage. I wear an arrow necklace to remind myself who I am, I am Al-Sahm, and I know that I hold the bow and arrows for God. I am a soldier not just for my country, but more importantly for God. Remember to keep your armor and be ready when the battle comes to your back yard. There may come a day when God calls upon you to be a soldier. No matter what the battle may bring know the end for you will always be Heaven so long as you’re a soldier for the King. We can choose what side we’re on, and as for me, I choose the God that’s given me everything I have.