The Way of the Warrior

by Erwin Raphael McManus

  A beautiful symmetry that connects all this together is that the same Hebrew word for “wind” is also the word for “spirit” and for “breath.” The same is true in Greek. In the Hebrew Scriptures the word is ruach, and in the Greek it’s the word pneuma, which also carries all three meanings in the one word. The same word that describes the breath that gives us life also describes the wind that blows around us. It also describes the Spirit of God, who comes to dwell within us.

  So if you are wondering if we can really speak to the wind, I can tell you without question that the breath of God, the Spirit of God, the wind of God, dwells within you. We are a people of the wind, and that wind that is God’s Spirit gives us the breath of life, the power of the wind, and the voice of the Spirit.

  When Jesus first appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and they were terrified and filled with fear at his appearance, he said to them, “Peace be with you!”88 And then John described a very unusual detail. He said, “With that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ ”89

  It is more than incidental that John noticed that Jesus breathed on them as he told them to receive his Spirit. Remember, the same word for “spirit” is the same word for “wind” and the same word for “breath.” We live because the breath of God is within us. His breath is the wind of his Spirit. This imagery takes us back to the moment God created the first man. With everything else in creation, he simply declared it into existence. He proclaimed, “Let there be light,”90 and the light came into existence. He spoke, and the universe was created.

  But with man it was different. After God formed the man out of the dust of the ground, he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”91 The man came to life when he breathed deeply of God. Jesus, when he breathed on his disciples, was restoring this intimate and profound connection. It should not surprise us that a short time later when God’s Spirit poured out on his people, Luke could describe it only as the sound of a rushing wind. Can we still speak to the wind? Only if we can hear it speaking to us.

  To See the Wind

  When Jesus walked among us, he spoke to the waves and to the wind and commanded them to be still, and they became silent. We often refer to this as proof that Jesus was fully God. But is it possible that this was a window into another truth—that Jesus was fully human? It makes sense that we would attribute everything that Jesus did, that we cannot do, to his divinity. The implications are too great for us to bear if they are actually also expressions of his humanity. So much of what Jesus came to do was not simply to point us back to God but to reflect to us what it means to be created in the image of God.

  None of us who have come to know Jesus as the Son of God would be surprised by the fact that he walked on water. Of course Jesus could walk on water: he is the God who created the water. This would be nothing for God, but no small thing for us. Yet on that occasion when Jesus walked on the water to meet his disciples while they worked their way across the sea, it was Peter who once again asked for the outlandish: “Jesus, tell me to come to you.”92

  It’s almost as if Peter understood that if God spoke to him and told him to walk on the water, the water would have to bend to his will. Jesus simply tells him to come, and Peter steps out of the boat and walks on the water, even if for only a moment, for a step or maybe two.

  Do you understand the implications of this moment? I must confess that I have no idea what the limits of human capacity may be when we actually begin to live out the fullness of the image of God as we walk in his intention for us. What I do know is that far too many of us have surrendered ourselves to being less than God’s intention for us. I also know that it will take an act of faith for us to become more.

  Strangely, we are told that Peter began to sink when he saw the wind and it terrified him. I find it curious that many translators actually augment what Scripture specifically says and replace the word wind with waves, or at the very least try to explain it away.93 The Bible does not tell us that Peter saw the waves; it tells us that he saw the wind. We reinterpret it because our experience tells us that you can see waves but not wind—unless, of course, you are walking on water. Maybe if you are walking on water you can see wind.

  As far as I know, walking on water hasn’t happened since Jesus and Peter did it. And maybe in terms of our present history, that was a unique phenomenon for a specific moment in time. What I do know is that there are places God wants to take you that are beyond your own capacity. What I am certain of is that the journey of faith always feels like walking on water and seeing the wind.

  Even while I write these words, my wife is walking among the villagers in Lilongwe, Malawi, with a team of thirty-four other people. They have left the comfort of their own homes and the safety of their own country to go where they would not have journeyed if God had not called them. What you need to think about when you recall Peter walking on water is not that you should be intent on walking on water as well but that you need to see where Jesus is and hear where he is calling and go there regardless of what you have to walk through. You must walk with confidence, knowing that neither water nor wind can keep you from God’s intention in your life and that in fact the universe will pave the way for you if you will decide to walk forward.

  So my question to you is simply this: What boat do you need to get out of? That is, what’s the next step you must take? We all have more than enough excuses to stay in the boat and more than enough reasons to explain why we could never walk on water. By the way, you might be well aware that eventually Peter began to drown. That’s not the unexpected part. You should expect that this would be a real possibility if you venture to walk on water.

  When Peter began to be enveloped by the waves, he cried out to Jesus and asked him to save him. It’s comforting to know that Jesus immediately reached out and pulled him out of the waters. He pulled Peter back to his feet, and while they were both standing on the water, Jesus had a brief conversation with Peter about his lack of faith. Then after capitalizing on what must have been an impressive teachable moment, Jesus walked with Peter back to the boat.

  The walk back, from my perspective, is far more profound than the steps Peter took to get to Jesus. You would think that after Peter began to drown he would have to be carried back by Jesus or maybe even swim by Jesus’s side while Jesus walked back on the water alone. Instead, Peter was able to accomplish, after he began to drown in his doubt, what he could not do before his moment of failure. Peter’s entire perspective of what was possible had to have been dramatically changed in that moment.

  Jesus prayed that we all would become one as he and the Father are one.94 I don’t think we have even begun to comprehend the implications behind that prayer. We are so conditioned to living disconnected from everyone else and everything else that the concept of oneness eludes us. What kind of creatures can hear the rain before it comes and see the wind when it blows and walk on water when God says to come? What kind of creatures can hear the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day? Who can commune with God while thrown into a fiery furnace and still escape unburned? It would seem that only angels could hear God whisper when they are hiding in a cave or see in a dream the future that awaits. Yet in each of these cases, we find it is the story of God and man walking together in time and space.

  Maybe we have underestimated what it means to be human. Is it possible that the stories preserved for us in Scripture are not simply there to inspire us but to provoke us? After all, Elijah was a human being, just as we are,95 and more importantly, he was just a human. Then why doesn’t our humanity reflect this kind of experience, this kind of life?

  When you become one with God, you begin the journey to become one with others, and to your surprise, you will also find that you become one with the universe around you. Jesus is the intersection of all things. It is Jesus who dwells in perfect u
nion with God and man and creation. To become one with all things, you must first become one with Christ. Jesus came to reconcile all things. He came to reconcile us to God, to reconcile us to one another, and to reconcile us to creation.

  In fact, the Bible tells us that all creation groans for its redemption. We couldn’t see it, but when we severed our relationship with God, we created a tear in the universe. Ironically, the universe seems more aware of its brokenness than we are of ours. Yet the groaning of the universe is only an echo of the groaning within the heart of humanity. The universe within you has a tear, and it groans for its redemption. Only Jesus can heal that tear and redeem you to life.

  The Creator of the universe stepped into his creation, became like one of us, and gave his life so we could live. He allowed himself to be broken so he might heal our brokenness. The cross is the intersection of all things. We know this about Jesus:

  The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.96

  Not only was everything created through God and for God, but only in Jesus do all things hold together. It is because of this that only through him and through his sacrifice on the cross are all things reconciled to himself. It is through him that the separation that defines our existence can be finally overcome. This then becomes our imperative: to reconcile the world. The warrior knows that peace can come only through reconciliation. When the warrior is one with all things, they are at peace with themselves.

  As it says in Hebrews, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”97 I have always thought that was an unfair expectation placed on humanity that God holds no other species accountable for. We are the only species in all creation that cannot please God without faith. Salmon fight to swim upstream, to lay their eggs, and while it is a great battle, there is no faith involved. The eaglet must one day be pushed out of the nest by its mother in hopes that its wings are strong enough for it to sustain flight, but faith is not required. A fish may have to share an ocean with a shark, but God never holds it accountable for its faith.

  Why is it that only humans are held to this standard? Why is it that without faith we cannot please God? The reason is both simple and significant: we are the only species in creation that can live beneath its intention. Everything in creation is created with intention, as everything in creation reflects the intention of God. Whether it is wheat or weeds, bees or butterflies, wolves or antelopes, everything in creation has its place, its relationships, and its intention. We have seen in our own lifetimes how returning wolves to their natural habitat radically restores a crippled ecological system.

  In the most elegant complexity possible, everything in creation exists not for itself but for everything interconnected to it. It’s hard to conceive that the blue whale, the sea’s giant, lives on nothing more than the ocean’s plankton, which is hardly perceivable by the human eye. It’s perplexing that humanity is the one species with awareness and is simultaneously so unaware of creation’s dependence on its choices. We are the one species that holds creation hostage, yet we are as dependent on nature as it is on us. I note this only to make us aware of a greater reality: that although a tiger is always a tiger and a cobra is always a cobra, neither can do anything outside its intention.

  Yet humans can live inhumane lives. Humans can live beneath their intention. Humans can violate the essence of who they were created to be. Even those who do not believe in the Creator or that we were created in his image find themselves perplexed by their own language. We never judge the morality of a tiger or cobra. We never conclude that a scorpion or black widow has violated some code of ethics or has chosen to live a life beneath their intention. However, humans can create or do things that we would define as unnatural and can commit heinous crimes against one another. Such actions are called inhumane.

  Yet God’s intention for you exceeds this. For some, the language of faith seems to imply that we will live lives that are superhuman. What I have come to know, and what Scripture reveals, is that faith actually makes us human again.

  Being Human

  The reason we cannot please God without faith is that faith restores our humanity. We were never designed to operate outside of faith. When we live without faith, we lose our proper relationships with God, with each other, and with the universe. In the same narrative, we are told that faith moves us toward confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we do not see.98

  This description contradicts the whole of human experience. It is most natural to have more confidence in what you actually have than what you hope for. What you have exists in the present, but what you hope for exists only in the future. When your hope is in the past, you are hopeless.

  So faith causes a shift inside a human spirit. It moves the warrior from confidence in what they have to confidence in what they hope for. It moves us from being creatures trapped in the past or contained by the present to being intimately connected to the future. Jackals don’t have futures; they only have the present. Elephants may have great memories, but they have no perception of the future. The human species is the only one aware of the future and in fact capable of creating it.

  Faith not only shifts our confidence from the present to the future but also from the realm of the visible to that of the invisible. Faith is not only confidence in what we hope for but assurance in what we do not see. This does not coincide with natural human experience. Left to ourselves, we have assurance in only what we do see, or at the very least we have far more assurance in what we see than what we don’t. Right in the heart of the United States sits Missouri, whose very nickname is the Show-Me State. I don’t think we have a state whose central tenet is “See the invisible.”

  The way of the warrior is a journey into the future invisible. The warrior understands that they must not fight for the past but fight for the future, that their weapons are not the weapons of this world but are divinely powerful and unperceivable by the natural man.

  The author of Hebrews reminds us that “by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”99 The writer used creation as the example to help us understand how we are to live because we are creation. God made everything that is visible out of what is invisible, and all that is visible and invisible is subject to his command.

  This is what it means to live by faith. This is not a new way but an old one. The ancients were commended for this life of faith. Faith is connectedness to the future and to the invisible. It is connectedness to the transcendent and the eternal. This is how we were intended to exist. This is how life was meant to be lived. When we stand in our intention, we are the ones who walk on water, who command the four winds to breathe into dead bones. We are the ones who call down fire from the heavens. We are the ones who stand before the sea and tell the waters to part and make a way.

  I was new in my journey of faith. I didn’t know much about God or the Scriptures or the way of the warrior. All I knew is that I had come to know the Creator of the universe and that his name was Jesus. My instructions about faith were fairly limited. I was told to read the Bible and meditate on its truth, to pray with the expectation that God would hear me, to listen with the expectation that God would speak. I was also told that the same God who wrote Scripture is the very God who would write the pages of my story as well.

  I wa
s only twenty years old and a student at Elon University, and I quickly began to meet other people of faith. There was one person in particular who had a dramatic effect on my early pilgrimage. She was young and vibrant and from all appearances seemed to have a dynamic and unshakable faith. Yet one day she confided to me that before coming to the university, she had lived a very different life. She had been living with a former boyfriend, and they were heavily involved in some self-destructive patterns. Unexpectedly, she expressed to me that she had recently contacted him and decided to return to her former way of life.

  At that point in my faith journey, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose to walk away from God once they had come to know him, but I could see she was in pain. I asked her where she felt God was in all of this, and she confessed that God no longer seemed real to her. I wasn’t trained for this. Faith was still new to me. I just knew that God would not give up on her even if she had given up on him.

  Maybe it was my own sense of desperation, but I said to her, “If there’s anything God could do to prove his love for you, I know he would do it.” I understand now that probably wasn’t the wisest thing in the world to say, but it’s what came to mind in that moment. I don’t know what I expected her to say. I hadn’t thought enough ahead to try to predict her response.

  She looked at me and said, “Well then, if God loves me, I want him to make it snow.” Now, it’s not that it doesn’t snow in North Carolina, but on that day there was no expectation of snow. Zero possibility of snow. No precipitation in sight. It was suddenly for me a gloomy clear day.