Saturday: Happy Warriors or Unhappy Worriers?
WEEK 22
SATURDAY
HAPPY WARRIORS OR UNHAPPY WORRIERS?
1 Peter 5:7-10
We have seen the sense of calm courage in Acts, as in this passage: “They seized the apostles and made a public show of putting them in prison. An angel from the Lord opened the prison doors during the night and led them out. The angel told them, ‘Go, take your place in the temple, and tell the people everything about this new life.’ Early in the morning, they went into the temple as they had been told and began to teach.” (Acts 5:18-21).
Note: they came straight out of prison and went straight into doing the very thing that had put them in prison, namely, the proclaiming of the good news. They might have said, “Now let’s lie low for a while till this opposition dies down.” But instead they went back to the same job at the very center of the opposition—the temple. They didn’t go to the margin; they went to the center. There they bared their brows and hearts and faced the storm. They didn’t do it reluctantly and hesitatingly: “Early in the morning, they went into the temple.” Early in the morning! They couldn’t wait for the doors to open; they were chomping at the bit.
The secret was in the commission: “everything about this new life.” It was “this new Life” that possessed them. This Life within them made them adequate for this life around them. The only way to get rid of fear is to raise the level of life within so that you can meet life around you, meet it by adequacy.
They didn’t try to get rid of fear by reducing their contacts with life, the way of escapism. They got rid of fear by increasing their contacts with Life and then increasing their contacts with life. It was Life against life. And the Life within was more than a match for life around.
This picture of the happy warriors standing in the temple at daybreak, eager for the battle of living to begin is one of the most triumphant pictures in human history. Many of us are not warriors; we’re worriers. A lovely hibiscus, sometimes called “The Warrior” was mistakenly spelled “The Worrier.” Many of us are just that—worriers. We live on a diet of fingernails. But these people were living on intimate contact with God; amazing courage was the outward result.
O Lord, help me to live so in contact with you in the Spirit that I shall partake of this glorious freedom from fear and anxiety. I accept your poise as mine. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall have the at-crack-of-dawn eagerness to face life by God’s grace.