To have a “warrior moment” you have to first love something so much you’ll die for it. I know I love Karen and the kids that much. I love the Lord that much and many of my friends, I think.

But a warrior moment has to be translated to action, to a point of confrontation and battle. I remember defending a woman that a group of drunk Croatians were hassling while waiting to board a plane in Nairobi. I remember the crazy act of rowing a boat across an inlet to a floating dock in Tampico and unmooring the entire dock and poling it over to transport a group on the other side. Or there was the time I loaned a sister ministry $250k so that a project could happen. Or two years ago, launching out to start the Swazi project without a budget or staff. Or standing up in front of those I was leading, knowing there was opposition and saying, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel.” Or my trips to China, Cuba, India, Peru, and England, all of which represented a launching out into the unknown.

Maybe fasting every week for Leah’s healing was an act of battle. Maybe starting AIM or engaging in deliverance ministry was. Starting ASPIRE in 1982 (a ministry in the Dominican Republic) was – that felt like war. Or fighting for Karen when, before I even knew her, it seemed like I’d lost her.

But my day in-day out life seems to be all too pedestrian. The same issues loom before me daily, like a scene out of “Groundhog Day.” And chief among the battles I fight are the internal battles with myself, with my flesh. Will I compromise today? Will I love as Jesus did or will I take shortcuts? Will I hold high the banner of purity or will I cut and run?

Will I pursue and fight for the dream of raising up a generation of radically committed disciples of Jesus or will I settle for running a missions agency that impacts a few?

I love Romans 7 and 8. Paul describes this battle with precision. “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out,” he says in Romans 7:18. The answer, that inner wooing to greatness is the voice of the Spirit. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness” it says in Romans 8:26. And verse 37 holds the promise that every would-be warrior longs to see realized, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

My spirit responds, “Yes!”