Last night I held our weekly martial arts class, It was a particularly good class, the students where progressing fabulously and we had a disciplined concentration in the room. Everyone was focused on the task at hand. Then disaster struck! Simon lost his balance in a wrestling match, fell badly and broke his leg. All I heard was a scream followed by Simons voice, teeth clenched, saying: It’s broken call the ambulance. A quick glance at his leg confirmed it, his shin bending in an angle it just shouldn’t bend in. The ambulance came quickly and we whisked him to the hospital.
I have held martial arts classes since 1992 and during all my years as a trainee, trainer or instructor I have never seen an injury this bad in the training hall. Sure, we’ve had our sprained wrists, twisted ankles, concushion or a cracked rib. On the streets fighting violent street crime I have seen worse but never in the training hall. In all these years we’ve had reckles trainings with full contact fighting and nothing like this happened. Tormenting myself with the whatifs late in the night my wife just turned to me and said:
“But you wheren’t building the kingdom of God back then.”
And as usual she is right. The weapons of our warfare isn’t carnal but mighty… Since it is a spiritual matter we often tend to neglect the fact that even though the battle isn’t carnal it’s devastating effects are! And when we engage in mundane physical activity we somehow tend to think of it as none spiritual. But the truth of the matter is that this spiritual battle claims carnal victims, and our daily mundane activities effect the outcome of the spiritual battle. This is why Paul says pray without ceasing, this is why we need to be aware of the battle around us and ready to fight at every hour!
