"The War Within" emphasizes the Christian life as a daily battle. War words dot the pages: weapons, foes, fight, slugged, battled, conflict, defeat, armor, controversy. As the lessons throughout the quarter have emphasized, a spiritual war engulfs the universe—and it wages inside each of us. This week’s lesson portrays the battle as daily and ongoing: "Christian warfare involves a continual battle with Satan, who wants to ’sift’ us daily" (131). As Christians, we must use the "weapons" of faith and prayer. In this year of daily war updates, the military language of spiritual warfare begins to blend with the six o’clock news.

As I studied the lesson, I found myself remembering a long-forgotten conversation with my mother. I must have been about five years old, and, by listening to grown-ups talk, had just figured out that men fight in wars. But then I heard someone talking about food for the soldiers

"Soldiers don’t eat, do they?" I expected my mother to agree with me.

"Of course, they have to eat."

"No they don’t. They fight."

"Silly. They can’t fight every minute. They eat. They walk around. They sleep."

"No, they have to fight," I insisted one last time, but I knew when to stop insisting, and I ran off to my room to try to work out how soldiers could eat and sleep if they had to fight. This idea that soldiers rest seemed much more momentous than the idea of war itself.

The lesson emphasizes the relentless nature of our spiritual foe. He never sleeps. He’s never satisfied. We must battle on. As I work my way through the lesson, the child’s voice in that long-ago conversation surfaces again. This time I hear the voice saying with authority, "My mother said soldiers have to eat. They have to sleep. They need rest."

God does promise that life includes cessation from war. The images of rest and peace in both the Old and New Testaments are more numerous that those of war. As we struggle daily with the images of our world at war, we need to balance off the language of spiritual warfare with the contemplation of peace. The Psalmist understood this need: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. . . . He restoreth my soul" (Ps. 23: 2, 3). Further on, the Psalmist returns to the idea of restoration: "Return unto thy rest, O my soul" (116:7). Only then does he allude to the reason rest is needed: "For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling" (116:8). Significantly, the promise of rest comes before the images of strife and sadness.

Christ came to the world to bring peace. It’s true, he does make that one troubling statement to his disciples on an occasion when he calls the twelve of them together to tell them their duties. The context is specific. The disciples must travel and preach. Conversion most surely will bring strife in some families—sons against fathers, daughters against mothers. So Jesus warns, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34).

However, in similar instructions to his disciples he emphasizes that they must enter a home by saying, "Peace to this house" (Luke 10:5) And to the toiling crowds he promises, "I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Here he refers to spiritual rest, but he also graciously recognizes that spiritual rebuilding sometimes takes physical rest. During the days when the crowds give them no time to rest or eat, Jesus invites his disciples to come "apart into a desert place, and rest a while" (Mark 6:31). In some of his most moving words to his disciples, Jesus reminds them, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). And as Jesus could say to the stormy waters, "Peace be still" (Mark 4:39), so he can still our hearts in the midst of spiritual turmoil.

Though the lesson selects some of Paul’s most famous spiritual warfare statements, he also emphasizes peace: "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" (Rom. 10:15). A little later he encourages with the words, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 15:13). In his letters to the Corinthians and Galatians, Paul is careful to greet Christ’s followers with words of peace, and he counsels the church members in Ephesians 6:15 to let their feet be "shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."

As we contemplate both the language of spiritual warfare and the promises of peace this week, a last contrast can help us focus our thoughts. Jacob wrestled with the angel and demanded a blessing (Gen. 22: 34–36), but Enoch walked with God (Gen. 5:22–24), and God took him home to heaven.

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