before i was...

i had a conversation with a friend last night, one of those talks you only have only once or twice a year, the kind that stretch deep into the night, and have you reeling in the morning wondering, did that happen?
even though it goes against all good writing edicate, i'm not going to give you the details of our conversation, becuase those belong to he and i and the Lord right now, but i do want to try and give you some perspective on things we conservative Christians don't talk about enough.

spiritual warfare is something that, for whatever reason, seems to be left out of most of the christian circles i am in. we don't talk about it much, we don't get curious, we don't probe, we don't question, and we hardly ever consider the possibility that life can be made more difficult, or less difficult depending, by the ongoing battle between the Heavenly Light, and the Darkness.

when we see our lives for the first time in heaven, all put together, a perfect biography of jane smith and john doe, i think we will see the sin and destruction in our lives, the evil of our flesh. we will see how each choice, good and bad, had an effect on the choices we would make next. i don't think any of this will surprise us, because they were choices we made, each outcome effected by the choice before it.
but we will also see, i believe, the battle in the heavenly and earthly realm that most of us are unaware of. we will see how the demons and the angels fought over us, over our hearts, our minds, and ultimately our lives. we will weep when we realize for the first time that God truly had been in our lives intervening and protecting us. we will see that not only was he holding us in his arms to gently soothe us, he was fighting against that which wanted to destroy us.
the best picture i can think of now (but is minisclue in comparison) is a firefighter rushing out of a burning building, holding a small infant, an infant who is totally unaware of the danger it was just in.
that is the new perspective many of us will have when we reach Heaven. but as i am coming to realize, there is a minority who have that perspective now, and fight with all the courage and valour that God has given them. their story, i believe, will have considerably more meaning to them while they are on this earth than most other Christians, because they will have been chosen to peak over the shoulder of the firefighter, and see the battle that he was, and is still fighting.