A Joyful Warrior

 Yesterday, at the American Thinker J. B. Shurk had an excellent piece entitled Make Being a "Joyful Warrior" A Personal Calling. There are many reasons for doing so. first is, of course, that there is only a limited effect you might have on the sitation today. Being a joyful warrior is certainly better than being a debby downer. Being a joyful warrior not only keeps his own spirits up, but builds the spirits of potential allies around him, and makes those oppressing us quite irritated. But the most imporant reason is spiritual-that God wants us to be joyful while resisting the evil around us.

The best way to remain joyful is to constantly ask the BIG Questions. You know the ones:

Perhaps the most difficult thing in life is finding genuine contentment. We set goals for ourselves, we strive to reach them, and when we do, any momentary happiness goes poof awfully quickly, as we seek and set new goals once again. At some point, even the most driven and ambitious among us will wonder, "What am I doing, and why am I doing it?"

That is a good thing. I don't have much figured out about this life, but I do believe we are meant to constantly ask ourselves the big questions: Why am I here? What is the point of our existence? Are there lessons I am supposed to learn along the way? What comes next?

The funny thing about asking big questions is that doing so tends to put all the things in life that ordinarily drag us down into startling perspective. It is only natural to get upset about domestic politics, higher fuel and food prices, growing censorship, and encroaching State tyranny. It is much more difficult to rise above those problems and keep trudging ahead. Eventually, all the turmoil either gets the better of us, or we realize that the turmoil — no matter how large in scope — still pales in comparison to the meaning of life. When you think in terms of why am I here and what am I meant to do, well, the terrible things around us start to look more like opportunities than problems.

Asking the big questions puts everthing in life in perspective. Suddenly one sees one's own problems as not so overwhelming. But more importantly, as Christians, our purpose in this world is to resist the evil one. And what is more effective in resisting the eveil one than joyfully going about your life while resisting him and all his works.

Experiencing joy connects us with the divine. We become acutely aware that we are both part of something much bigger than ourselves, as well as singularly in charge of our fates. Joyfulness clears out the clutter that keeps us from seeing truth clearly. It is a path toward inner peace. One breath at a time, recognize your life as something more than just a collection of days. Once you find joy and learn to guard it from the outside world, then problems look much different and sometimes melt away.

I have quite explicitly stated that our purpose here on earth is to by Christ's army poking the Evil one in the eye at every turn through our individual gifts and telents. Shurk surely sees the same thing, for he notes that the Left's obsession with not just lying to us, but attempting to force everyone else to tell the lie is a evidence tha the Devil is behind the Left:

Most atheists I've met describe their understanding of existence in one of two ways: either as the mathematically preordained result of deterministic events or as the strange conclusion of a long string of random occurrences. Either the laws of physics determined that roughly 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang we would all be sitting around reading American Thinker together, or the unpredictable chaos of the universe took one wacky turn after the next until stumbling into our present reality. Either way, neither random chaos nor mathematical determinism leaves much room for notions of free will or a sacred understanding of life.

Since atheism is far more prevalent among political leftists, it seems counterintuitive that they get so angry when they do not get their way. I always think, "If there is no God and free will is imaginary, then why is it so imperative that the left's worldview be imposed on everyone else? If life is no different than a pile of rocks and our choices are nothing more than complex math equations, then why can't leftists stand back and accept the world as it unfolds?" Just as there never seem to be any atheists in a foxhole, there never seem to be any leftists inclined to forfeit the exercise of their own free will — especially when doing so would sacrifice their control over everyone else.

In closing, Shurk notes:

When we refuse to abide the will of powerful interests and instead ask the big, important questions in life, we make those with power feel uncomfortably small. We connect to things much larger than ourselves. We place ourselves on a path toward finding authentic joy. We open our lives to the helping hands of God. One breath at a time, one choice at a time, an amazing thing happens when you put yourself in His hands: the powers that be here on Earth become astonishingly weak.

Remember to irritate a leftist by being a joyful warrior.