Yes, I did not make any grammatical mistake when I wrote ‘single fighters’. I had wanted to write this a long time ago, but I had always thought, not many would benefit from it. I guess I was wrong.
You see, every Christian in this world is a God’s child. That is quite a beautiful description. Imagine, who doesn’t want to be His child, what a great privilege! That is when your faith is quite young. You start to know Him and you feel that He is so good, He takes care of your needs and you count His blessings.
Fast forward few years walking with Him, you will refer yourself as God’s soldier. In a sense, it is a pride for you to be chosen as God’s soldier. And you will think, it is a cool role, until you see what a soldier does. For me, I grew up in a quite stable condition (apart from major riot in Indonesia), so I only have a slightest idea about what a soldier do. The closest idea I can know is from movie, and it is not a very pleasing one.
The point is, being a soldier is a painful job, you have to defend yourself and whatever you believe in, in warzone. And you put your life at stake. In short, it is not an easy job. But I think, Jesus perfectly summed up the stake in His statement in Luke 14, “Whoever doesn't carry his cross and follow me can't be my disciple.” He made it clear that the price of following Him did not come cheap.
Now, usually soldiers fight in a battalion, or at least in a group or team. It makes sense, since as one of Murphy’s law said “Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.” To simplify it, having teammates decrease your chance to catch one of the enemy’s bullets. It is always feel better to fight alongside your fellow soldiers. It feels good, since even though you are afraid, you are not alone. In war, you might be worried that you will get shot, but personally, I am more worried if I get wounded and no one is there to help me.
Now, among those soldiers that are sent to war, there are few chosen (for whatever reason) to go alone. Which clearly means, they are by him/herself in the field. There are soldiers who do not go with the mainstream, and sadly, they only have their weapons to trust on. Of course, they have to believe in the ‘air support’ (faith in God, in this case).
I have always believed that I am one of those single fighters. I spent my Christian life mostly fighting by myself. It is not my choice to do that (in fact, I long for fellowship as much as anyone else), but apparently, God doesn’t promise a continual fellowship with others. It is not in His promise list as far as I know. He made promise that He will be with us always, but He never promise that there will be always someone by our side. Some of us have to face with that fact and push forward.
Now, life as a single fighter is never easy. No matter how strong you are, once you get into a continual exposure in the secular world, you will fall, you will stutter. A jar that pours water will eventually runs dry if you do not refill it. It will also get dry, if the amount that fills the jar is less than the amount it sends out.
Unlike life with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, my life is bit different. In a sense, I do not get filled by my fellows, I have to depend on some sources, books, bible and church. I am sure some of you can relate to that. Sometimes, I don’t get a luxury of being picked up when I fall, so I have to pick myself up.
Now, I learn the hard part of being a single fighter for so long, and I have my own view. I look back into the days I have to struggle by myself, facing the storm of the world. There was a time when I was in despair, and I cried out to Him. And I found so many beautiful answers in the story of Elijah. And I hope, I can share it with you.
I thought that being a single fighter in this world is a rarity. The truth is, it is not. One thing that change the way I was learning is how I looked at my own situation. When I was focused on myself, I felt that I was so lonely, I was so pitiful. Things changed when I started to shift my focus on God. In Elijah case, God showed him that there were still so much people that were faithful to Him. So, he was not definitely alone. When I shifted my focus on God, I started to think differently. I started to be more and more grateful, because it was only by grace that God had chosen to use me.
I also learned that silence could be as effective as words to be His tool of communication. Silence was a painful experience, and nobody liked to have silence as an answer. Throughout my days, I have been faced with many silences from Him, but it was when He was silence that I found so many beautiful insights. God had shown Elijah in his experience on the mountain, asking him where he can found Him. It was not in the wind, earthquake or fire. It was in a still small voice. Sometimes, my life is so busy that my ear cannot focus on these small gentle voices.
Being a single fighter also trained me to be more dependent on God. When I was alone, I learned to put my hope in God, not in people. Of course, sometimes I was in despair, because it didn’t feel good at all. It is fascinating how human can still put hope in things even though they know that they are not reliable. Sometimes, the only way human can learn to depend on God is if God make Himself the only One to rely on. The bible teaches us that rich man is hard to enter the heaven, not because it is against wealth, but because rich people have material to depend on, while poor people, sometimes have nothing but God.
There are certain things that I do regret when I look back at my past. There are times when I felt so depressed that I was angry with God. I complained about how I wished I could be someone else, about how hard it was to follow the Lord. And that is one part that I regret about. It turns out that Elijah did the same thing. It was his mistake that he overstated his reason of being who he was. The truth is, God could easily choose someone else to represent him. Since that incident, Elijah did not perform any miraculous deed anymore (apart from his ascend to heaven), and God asked him to find Elisha, who replaced him.
I want to say to single fighters out there, that you are not alone. Find strength in him. We often have despairs in our lives, but please always remember, despairs are only moments in our lives, not a way of lives. Always always remember, that the God that calls us out, is also the God who will take care of us.
Also remember, having fellowship is a privilege. God never promises that He will always put someone beside you to go through the journey, but He promises to be with us until the end of the earth, and that promise should be more than enough for us. And since we do not have that much privilege, for every person that God has put in your life, please do try to make a difference. Because, in every deed that we do, it will mean something. You will be amazed how people’s words and encouragements can mean so much to me at the moment of despair and soul-searching. For me, Ryn’s words, Shel’s encouragement, BG’s ear, parents’ advices, Jenny and Winta’s comments, Edwin’s story, and many more, they give me so much strength to carry on.
PS: To all my readers and commenters, thank you so much for your responses. It has been a source of encouragement for me to write more. BTW, please do let me know if you think this post is bit too long. Do you like previous notes (shorter), or this one (longer)?