August 27, 2012

Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
We have in our congregation a wonderful man who as a 19 year old was in the second wave of troops to land at Normandy in the invasion of Europe during WWII, what is called D-day. Another was involved in the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle of that same war. I have no personal experience of combat, something for which I am tremendously thankful, but I have heard it described as “the fog of war.” In the midst of the battle all is likely to be confusion and chaos with soldiers struggling to find their way and complete their personal aspect of the mission amid deafening sound and restricted visibility. In the wider context of the above verse Paul is describing “the full armor of God” a description of the spiritual life in terms of the battle gear of the Roman soldier of his day. Verse eighteen sounds like the fog of war to me, praying at each unexpected turn using any and all prayers at your disposal, desperately trying to see what is up ahead as you persevere with your unit. It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. Almost everyone feels like they are in the fog of war from time to time. It is often in these times that we are most drawn to pray. Paul would have us understand that on some grand scale we are involved in a greater conflict involving good and evil, love and hate, faith and despair. In the fog of war we can be people of the Word and prayer, praying “in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests… for all the Lord’s people.”