The Warrior

“Our difficulties and our dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them”
–Winston Churchill

Who the Warrior Is
We men, young and old, seem to be drawn to the character of the Warrior more than any other character. We love the stories where we can watch valiant Warriors come through when it’s all on the line. We desire this same ability within ourselves as well; the ability to show the world, and possibly ourselves, we have what it takes.

Boys growing up connect early with the character of the Warrior. No matter how hard you try to suppress the Warrior in a boy, he will find a way to play out its character. Take his guns, and he will pick up a stick, it is now a bazooka. Boys continue this fascination into teenage years with video games, living out the Warrior vicariously, it then continues into manhood with sports and hunting. He does not go away.

Properly lived, the character of Warrior has strength, energy, and motivation to take life and its problems head on, moving forward, and taking ground. Doesn’t that sound great? If we live out the character of Warrior in our own story, we can take an active stance towards life’s conflicts instead of a passive one that merely holds its ground, or worse, loses ground.

What the Warrior Does
General Patton said, “A Leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.” The Warrior is a clear thinker with the ability to focus his mind and body upon the situation at hand, evaluate what needs to be done, the best strategy to accomplish this, and adapt to the situation as it progresses. Let’s look at these characteristics.

A clear mind is important to the Warrior. Without this quality, the Warrior can turn into a pushover, afraid to act. General Patton said, “No sane man is unafraid in battle, but discipline produces in him a form of vicarious courage.” This is the clear mind. It does not mean that the Warrior is unafraid; it means that the Warrior is able to rise above fear (knowing that progress is more important than fear) to take on the situation.

The Warrior is able to evaluate what needs to be done. This is important, and shows maturity. The immature Warrior, the Hero, will not evaluate himself or his circumstance. He does not possess the clear mind. The Hero will just jump into a situation blindly, and get slaughtered in the process. Many great warriors have been martyred out of true bravery, yet there is a clear difference between the bravery of a clear minded Warrior, and the Hero’s ill prepared attack that ends in slaughter.

A Warrior will be able to evaluate his opponent and circumstance, and plan out a strategy for engagement. If a frontal assault will not work he will plan a flank attack. If the opponent is too large, he will call for reinforcements. If the timing of the attack is wrong, the Warrior will regroup and engage when he is strong enough. The Warrior is a master of the battle. What if we applied such a mastery to life’s battles?

What if we had these characteristics when we were faced with difficult situations with someone in the workplace, a situation within our family, financial hardships, stressful times, new challenges, or tragedy? What if we could have clear thinking, focus, evaluation, and adaptation for the best way to overcome the situation at hand? Life would then become exciting! We could make progress in our marriages, jobs, education, and struggles.

Above all, the Warrior has principles that he lives by, and can adapt those principles to life’s circumstances. A true Warrior is not led about by fear, but has a positive attitude, courage, takes responsibility, is self-disciplined, and has mastery over his mind and body. A true Warrior will treat discomfort or pain as opportunity for strengthening. The reason a Warrior is not afraid of pain or discomfort is because he is led by his principles instead of comfort, he will rise above difficulty to fulfill his duty. No wonder the character of Warrior is so admired by men. He is admirable!

Where the Warrior Goes Bad
The character of the Warrior can go seriously wrong. Much of what we may have seen in the Warrior is his bad side. When the Warrior goes bad, he becomes the twofaced Barbarian/Pushover. Some men become enamored with the Warrior’s aggressiveness, but do not embrace his discipline and control. They end up becoming mindless, cruel, abusive barbarians.

When we suppress the character of Warrior in our lives, it acts like a bottle of soda. It can only be jostled around so much before it explodes, and then things get messy. Maybe we lose it on the dog, (a safe place to lose it) or the kids, a co-worker, boss, spouse, or friend. The suppressed Warrior, sooner or later, becomes abusive. A proper Warrior, however, is not abusive – ever. He is strong enough to control his emotions and his temper. Even the Bushido Samurai Warriors had a code of seven principles to live by: integrity, courage, generosity, respect, honesty, honor, & loyalty.

The Barbarian comes out of a severe insecurity. The aggressiveness is a protection for a fragile ego. The Barbarian is fearful that someone will find out that he really is a weakling, so he puts on an aggressive front. Usually the “alpha male” front works fine. Not many people are going to question him for fear of being chewed out!

The barbarian can also turn on himself instead of other people. He is the workaholic, student-aholic, or sports-aholic overachiever. He is the fearful one who will abuse himself, and, indirectly his family, with his absence physically and/or emotionally. This self abuse comes from a fear of someone finding out he does not have what it takes. He finds his identity in what he does instead of who he is. The foundation of his identity is resting on the shifting sands of other peoples opinions.

Those who do not hide their fear with an aggressive, macho front can turn into the pushover, the one who lets life happen to him, the one who lets fear keep him from action. He is the one who lets his weaknesses, fears, and insecurities rule his life, instead of overcoming them.

The “pushover” is the barbarian turned upon himself in another way. This man has convinced himself that he is a coward, and turns the abusive Warrior energy upon himself to punish himself for being cowardly. He allows people to push him around, because in his own mind, he deserves it for being so cowardly.

Theodore Roosevelt was a very sickly child. His father told him, “Theodore you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. I am giving you the tools, but it is up to you to make your body.” Theodore responded without hesitation, “I will make my body.” Here is a picture of him in his youth. He grew up to be a very rugged individual not held up by his fears.

A pushover is afraid to confront life head on, and, therefore, takes a passive stance in the hopes of just surviving it all. The character of the Warrior, however, actively confronts evil and utterly destroys it, not out of a love of destruction, but in the hope that new life will spring forth, that good will fill the vacuum where the former evil prevented its flourishing. This is what Jesus did for us.

A Biblical Example: Jesus
Jesus was not afraid to use the character of Warrior to confront evil. The Pharisees were a strict religious sect of the Jews that had a stranglehold on their religion. The system was set up in such a way that if you did not have enough money to hire a religious lawyer to make sure that you were religiously fit to enter into the Temple, you could not participate. This left the poor, the sick, the widows, and the orphans out, and alienated from God.

Jesus, however, came onto the scene and preached the good news to the poor. The crowds came with such force that he was forced to preach in a boat for lack of room on the shore. Jesus was making God available to everyone. He was taking the monopoly the Pharisees held on God out of their hands, thus removing their power. In His system, the Pharisees no longer had the ability to financially capitalize on the poor. This made them angry, yet Jesus was led by his principles and not his fear.

Jesus confronted the religious buying and selling in the Temple and drove them out with a fierceness that could move a crowd. He was not angry because people were engaged in business at church, but because they had used all of the Temple space reserved for Gentiles to worship, keeping non-Jewish people from God as well.

The money changers were also responsible for making sure that sacrifices were up to par to offer to God, and if they were not, then they could most certainly buy one of these convenient sacrifices here for a higher fee. Or for another fee you could exchange your “unclean” pagan money here for “clean” Temple money, again for a fee. This was taking advantage of the poor coming to worship.

Jesus knew that his primary battle was not against flesh and blood, but it was a spiritual battle. Jesus went to the cross to defeat the powers of sin and death, utterly defeating them, so that new life with God could emerge. Here is what the writer of Hebrews says about the whole battle:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT)

We can actively confront the sin within our life and defeat it, and we can do this by the power made available to us through God’s Holy Spirit at work within us. Jesus is a great Warrior, and we can imitate him by living out the verse from Hebrews. This is what a disciple is, one who sees the teacher, and then goes and does likewise.

Too often we have a cerebral faith IN Christ that requires nothing of us but an agreement to doctrinal statements, but more importantly, we need to have the faith OF Jesus that led him to live the life he did. To walk as he walked, live as he lived. This is the type of faith that makes real change in how we live. This is the type of faith that is a lifestyle as well as a world-view.

There is so much evil in the world that needs war waged upon it. A good Warrior will destroy evil to make way for good.

If the Warrior is in a bad marriage, he will wage war upon whatever is keeping his marriage from being good, destroy it, and clear the pathway for new life in his marriage. If the Warrior is in a stifling job, he will discipline his mind and body, training himself patiently and destroying negative thought patterns and habits that keep him from advancement in order for new life to come. If a Warrior sees injustice within his sphere of influence, he wages war upon it, bringing peace.

Some men fear the inner Warrior’s aggressiveness so they suppress it, but it only leads to outbursts of rage, whether upon others or upon self. These outbursts of rage can be very camouflaged, as in the workaholic who spends all his time in the office, or the educational overachiever who misses the beauty of life in order to get a grade.

When we possess a spirituality that can access the Warrior, we can stop abusing others and themselves. We will not be passively watching life happen to us, but we will be actively taking on life. We will be Warriors who are principled, and under the authority of the King of the land, our King Jesus. We will wage war upon the injustice that we see and reflect God’s characteristic of justice. We will not take abuse from other people and shrug it off, but will “parry” their attempts to attack us, yet not barbarically counter attack. Our attacks will be for the purpose of bringing about new life, justice, and vitality into our kingdom, not feeble attempts to protect fragile egos

We would do well to remember Winston Churchill’s famous saying: “Never give in—never, never, never, in nothing great or small…never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”