Overcoming Battle Fatigue

OVERCOMING BATTLE FATIGUE

The first line of the hymn Peace in the Valley reflects the discouragement that often fills the hearts of weary travelers: “Well, I’m so tired and so weary, but I must go along; till the Lord comes and calls me away.” Most of us want that call to be like Abraham’s, to whom God said, “you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age” (Gen. 15:15).

But there are others of us who feel more like Elijah: “I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kgs. 19:4). If we thought that there was the slightest chance that God would grant the petition, we would ask him to send a chariot of fire and sweep us up into heaven as he later did Elijah (2 Kgs. 2:11). Having little confidence that this will happen, we long for that grand and glorious heart attack—the one that comes just as we sit down after having delivered the most powerful sermon of our career or having penned the last line of the next best seller.

The chorus of the hymn promises peace in the valley, someday. But more importantly, so does God’s word: “And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing, if we don’t get discouraged and give up” (Gal. 6:9, Living Bible). In the meantime, Satan is at work to discourage us. If he can’t get us to give up on God, he will try to cause us to give up on ourselves. Failing in that, he will cause us to give up on our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Satan’s Ready Resources

Satan uses circumstances to discourage us. There are those temptations that are common to man but may be ours in abundance.

Saints have lost their wealth, but could confidently say, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21).

Saints have lost loved ones but could—through the tears and sorrow—still bless the name of the Lord. Others have lost their health but gave God the glory. But Job lost it all—his wealth, his family, his health, the support of his wife who badgered him to “Curse God and die!” But through it all Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10). No life is without its losses, its hurts, and its heartaches. But some people seem to get more than their share.

If one has been taught to believe that the guys in the white hats always win, that the good guy always gets the good girl, and that cheaters never win, one can easily become overwhelmed by the circumstances of life. If God will not grant that grand and glorious heart attack, some take matters into their own hands and destroy themselves. Some do it slowly, and others with quick dispatch.

The advance of sin and the retreat of righteousness discourage others. Peter tells us something about Lot that the Old Testament does not reveal. Ignoring this revelation, many have condemned Lot, while the Scriptures praise him, saying that God rescued Lot who was “a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)” (2 Pet. 2:7-8).

Only the most naïve or the most optimistic cannot see the advance of sin and the retreat of righteousness during the last three or four decades. The examples, the statistics, the studies are readily available and need not be cited. The thing that torments many righteous souls today is not just the statistical decline in righteousness and advance of sin, but the ho-hum attitude of those whose souls should be tormented by the present state of affairs.

Another old hymn, Farther Along, is an attempt to cheer up those who are discouraged by the seeming robustness of sin and the fragility of righteousness. “We’ll understand it all by and by” the last line promises, and well we may. But John’s apocalypse doesn’t really promise us that every question of life will be answered when we get to heaven. What it does promise is that heaven will be worth it all.

Satan doesn’t just use circumstances to discourage us; he also uses people.

Satan got to Mrs. Job, and instead of her being a suitable help to Job in his time of trouble, she told him to just curse God and die. We need to remember that she had lost everything too. But she, like Job’s friends, seems to want to place the blame on Job. Somebody has to be at fault. They always do, don’t they? These things don’t just happen, do they? Maybe Mrs. Job was thinking, “God’s getting even with somebody, Job, and I know it isn’t me. I’ve been a faithful, dutiful wife. I had your kids, I picked up after you, put up with your mother. You wouldn’t have had half of what you did if it hadn’t been for me. I thought I smelled strange perfume on your robe after that trip you took last week. You can fool some of the people some of the time, Job. But you can’t fool me and God for long.” Maybe she thought it and maybe she didn’t. But there seems to be an ingrained desire for us to fix blame when bad things happen to seemingly good people.