Train for Battle

Psalm 144:1
Praise be to the LORD my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.

When I first stumbled across this verse, I thought, "Wow, cool verse!" Then I began to think more about it, and then I wondered what translation they had used, this is the NIV for those that like to keep track. I wanted to be sure that I had a solid translation, so I could understand it, and the context, why would David write it?

Are we trained? Have we allowed to God to train us? How do we do battle? How do we fight? We fight not with physical swords and shields (lots of fun to play with sharp pointy objects, check out the nearest Renaissance Faire), but we wrestle with powers and principalities that we cannot see.

It is a spiritual fight. Actually its easier than we think, but it's the toughest thing we'll ever do:

• It's easier than we think because the battle's already been won. The penalty has been paid by Jesus on the cross.
• It's the toughest thing we'll ever do, because we are so easily fooled into complacency by the enemy, lured into compliance with sin by our old nature.

What's this contrast, then and how does letting God train our fingers for battle? For me it is the gift of a sharp technical mind combined with a gift of writing (not world class like Solzhenitsyn), but hopefully improving. One of the things I set out to do about a year ago was to write a story for our daughter explaining the deeper truths of being a child of God. She is a full heir to the kingdom, because she has accepted Jesus as Savior. What the project became was a story, Princess Afeicta is Named an Heir, a renaissance princess (her alter-ego) is named an heir to the kingdom, even though she is a daughter. I've posted it to WordPress so you can access it, personalize it and print it out to read to your daughter(s).

What's your fingers trained to do?