I love a great war movie. Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Hacksaw Ridge are some of my all-time favorites. You are probably asking yourself, how could a Christian counselor love all of the blood and gore of these types of movies? Well, I feel these movies have taught me a lot about how to: persevere, move forward against great odds, and make a difference in a hellish and overwhelming situation.
Did you know you are in a daily war? A war that is not made up of humans, with flesh and blood, but with the power and principalities of the dark world. A war between you and an invisible enemy who wishes to seek, kill, destroy and crush your soul. A war where the weapons forged upon us inflict wounds of doubt, fear, deception, despair, defeat and degradation. Well, if you are finding you are facing this war every day, maybe every hour of the day, you are not alone.
How do we fight an invisible and formable foe every day? How can we possibly manage to protect ourselves in this type of battle? The answer lies in how you fortify your bunker. Bunkers are designed to be a reinforced underground shelter to protect a soldier during war time from becoming a casualty. If not done correctly, bunkers can take easy hits from the enemy, be seized and taken over. But, a strong bunker that is made of solid, reinforced construction, has a good blueprint, and has key living materials can withstand being in any war zone.
I see my family living every day together doing our best to keep the invisible enemy out of our bunker. Our bunker is an invisible shelter where we all feel safe and secure together. A shelter that is fortified by our love for Jesus and well protected under His watchful eye and care. We sometimes face the grenades of doubt, the firestorm of fear and the stabbing pains of defeat, but as a family, we know those weapons will only weaken the bunker temporarily, and it will not be over taken as long as Jesus is with us.
So, what does it take to construct such a bunker and fortify it? Love, trust, attunement to each other, attachment, quality time with God and each other, community, the Bible, prayer, worship, give thanksgiving and praise to Jesus and stay in communion together (no matter what), just to name a few. In my family, we all have to be intentional that we will fight FOR each other and not AGAINST each other.
We aren’t a perfect family by any means, and sometimes, we allow the enemy’s bombs to go off in our lives. But each time a weapon is forged into our bunker and goes off, we are getting wiser and more able to see that the enemy isn’t each other. The best part is: we are learning to not fight our battles by ourselves, but rather on our knees praising Jesus as our strong protector and defender.
