Worth Fighting For
There are definitely times when the relentless pace of hypersexuality in our culture gets wearying. And there are times when it seems that fighting for purity and freedom is a losing battle; that Christian men don’t really care all that much and don’t want to keep at it. When that happens, it’s easy to lose heart; to think nobody cares and it doesn’t matter.
At times like that, it’s easy to think that swimming against the tide of culture and pornification is useless.
After all, our world is overwhelmingly hypersexualized. Whether it’s in the sexualization of young kids through music, entertainment, fashion and so on that are shaped by the porn industry, or the mainstreaming of porn in various other ways, there are times when i feel like David had it much easier with Goliath.
When i am losing heart; when the battle is thick and Evil seems to be advancing against all my best efforts; when it seems that our whole world is pornified so greatly that nothing could ever stem that tide, God will provide something. The other day, my kids were watching the second Lord of The Rings film, and at the end there is this bit if dialogue between Sam and Frodo:
Sam: But in he end, it’s only a passing things, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But i think, Mr. Frodo, i do understand. i know know. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
Frodo needed Sam in that moment. He was ready to give up. He was ready to think that the mission he had been given of carrying the ring to Mordor was too great, too demanding and futile. Weren’t the dark riders just going to hunt him down and kill him for the ring anyway? It was such a burden.
But at that moment Sam starts remembering the good stories that he and Frodo grew up hearing; stories of valor, honor, truth, goodness, beauty, peace and love. And in those stories good people prevailed. In a moment of extreme distress and a critical juncture in their own story, Sam refocuses Frodo’s mind and heart on what is worth fighting for.
Thanks, Sam.
Intentional Warriors 
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