We are very much aware of the tragedy and the terribleness of the times in which we live. Over the years, we have in some measure or another known what war is all about.  War was out there somewhere and every now and then we felt the pain of our men and women in uniform who were affected. But now we can in some little way understand the insecurity and pain of what this means right in our own homes and city. We are personally and all too often painfully confronted with the disastrous acts of terrorism and it’s consequences in our otherwise carefree city and nation. We were a nation at peace and for peace until that cruel and cowardly act upon us on a fine September morning. Our world was never the same again.

 

And spiritual wars, like the natural ones, generally occur in seemingly the most unexpected moments.  It is usually in one of the idyllist moments when we least expect that terror strike. The enemy has never ceased to wage his warfare against the saints even though he was defeated some two thousand years ago. The many causalities of the war are not necessarily on the battlefields by the guns of war but right in the lair of our comfort zones. While it is true that many are cut down by the sword of the enemy in the open fields of the battlegrounds, there are far more who succumb in the mundane everyday life deep within the confines of their own comfort and safety. The wiles of the enemy are as ruthless in the battlefield as it is in the confines of our own “secure” home and city.

 

There in the Bible is a passage that the sacred writer takes such pains to tell us the details of a war that took place and the events of that day. As we turn to 2 Samuel chapter 18 and from verse 6, we read, “So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the forest of Ephraim.  7 And the people of Israel were smitten there before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men. 8 For the battle was there spread over the face of all the country: and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured."

We are told that the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. The Bible commentators tell us that the word "devour" literally means killed. Those who fled to the forest for refuge were devoured by the wild animals that it sheltered and by the wildness of the flora.  More people have died in the city by rumors and fright than the brave men who were killed in the midst of the battle. The twist of life is as long and tragic as what took place on 9/11. We went about life as usual with no premonition of things that would take place. The odyssey of our spiritual journey reminds of the capricious climate we encounter. How many have been brought down when they least expected it. The tragedy is that so many have fallen not so much by the sword as by so called “guest” who come to us, that appear innocent enough at first, but turns out to be assassins and terrorist who have come to destroy us. Those so-called “harmless” drugs, tobacco, substance, liquor, fast food and pornographic materials have killed more people than all our finest in the battlefield. How true the text in the scripture that tells us that the forest devours more people than the sword devours.

 

When we consider the battle of life, we realize that things in a way we had never imagined would destroy us entangle us. It could be those innocent television programs that shape us rather than God’s vision for our lives. It may have been those harmless looking pleasures that turned out to be the terrorist in our lives. Make no mistake about it; it is usually the mere forest (those normal looking woods and undergrowth that was allowed to grow) and not any sharp and cutting edge of a sword that destroys our lives and testimonies. The wood that we have tolerated in our nation or in our spiritual lives that has been our undoing is devouring us. As a nation we are equipped and prepared to face any evil force or empire in the whole wide world. But we were not prepared for terrorist in our own cities. If we as a nation, individual or as a Christian, we have escaped the sword only to fall into the seemingly innocence’s of the wood then we are worse off than when we began. The innocence’s of the forest will soon turn out to be far deadlier than the devastation of war.