How Winners Lose

I have been looking at war and the challenges of great armies losing pivotal battles and eventually wars.

One thing stands out; consistency.

An army is always training or should be. In fact many inventions in the technical world came from the military, even the computer that we use. The space adventure should also have started with the military.

The key word in the military is forward.

But there is another aspect in the military that one will overlook to their doom, adversity.

Remove an adversary or the threat of one and the military will disintegrate in a very short time. That is why enemies are created if they do not exist. That is why countries sponsor rebellion far off to be able to test the weapons they are developing. And having been in the media I know this quite a bit. That is why rich countries (with raw materials) are never allowed peace for a moment as they are key to two things, cheap raw materials since they are at war and an excellent test ground for weapons through arming factions.

That is why the most mineral resourced countries will never be allowed to enjoy peace even for a year. That is also why Africa is never allowed to get leaders that think for her people.

I remember once going to minister in the DRC and went to the town nearest the place they say has the most gold reserves. Do you know there literally is no road to the mines? We were told that it was only very recently that motorbikes started accessing them. Incidentally, I saw many UN helicopters (at least that is what they looked like) landing and taking off from beyond the forest that is the buffer from civilized life. Even the roads are so bad to get there. I remember praying very seriously that God performs a miracle to enable us get out by stopping the rain and drying the road as it was simply impassable even with a small drizzle.

Back to our topic. An enemy and warfare are important ingredients for the soldier. Even when there is no war, a soldier must always be preparing for war through constant training and drills to ensure that he is in tip top condition.

Complacency is the greatest enemy to warfare. Comfort is akin to committing suicide as a soldier.

Saul was a good king, initially. But then he became settled.

I am sure that had Goliath appeared in those early years Saul could have very easily faced him. That is from the little we have from the scriptures.

But he gets an army. And he has a very brave and loyal son. Then he becomes a big man.

At that point even God was unable to get him to focus on the reason he was made king. He starts thinking self-preservation instead of Israel and her needs. The army becomes more important than God’s word. Simply speaking he had lost his momentum.

But I think his problems began when he lost sight of his enemy. You see he was made g to handle the enemies of Israel who were by extension enemies of the God of Israel. He was therefore supposed to be attuned to God’s voice to be an effective king.

His first error is that he ignored God’s voice and word as he probably thought his situation needed instant action. He therefore usurped the priest’s office.

The second error was making friends with what God had ordered him to exterminate, and looking for justification for it.

Thirdly, due to those first mistakes, he transferred enemy status to a loyal friend, cheating him of a wife he had pledged, forcing him to marry another to kill or entrap him and even taking the same that was so expensively got and giving her to somebody else.

That is what took his situation from bad to worse to worst. He had simply lost his purpose.

By purpose I do not mean the cliché word motivational preachers are parading all over to guide lost people to love the world religiously. Let me give two verses that may help us grasp what purpose is.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)

God is the source of purpose; meaning that only God is the focus of that purpose. It therefore means that purpose comes from revelation and not study or observation.

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: (Acts 13:36)

Again it is God who determines whether we have served our purpose or not. Like I like to say He is the only one with the marking scheme.

Knowing the battles we are supposed to be fighting in our life will determine the kinds of victories we will enjoy. Forgetting or seeking relief from them is the precursor of our defeat. Sadly, that defeat is determined by the holder of the marking scheme though people in fellowship with Him are able to get glimpses of that defeat.

As an example Jonathan knew that his father’s season was over and so he had no crown to inherit. But he was content with serving the right king as God had changed the season.

I repeat; when Saul lost the purpose for which he was anointed as king, sin, all kind of sin became inevitable.

We can learn the same from David. When did he sin?

The first time is when he remained at home during the season kings went to war. He was thus left by his army to laze around and the devil had a very easy time leading him to sin.

The other time is when all wars had ceased that he started wondering how big his army was.

Manasseh was a product of ease after Hezekiah was added 15 uneventful years. We don’t see any war, any challenge, any building. The only thing we are told is that his heart became proud. We are also told he became insensitive to his posterity when told about the captivity his son would invite from his rebellion.

What can we learn from this?

We must be at the forefront of what God has called us to, consistently. We must be actively pursuing the vision God gave us without wavering. But above all we should be receiving our marching orders continually as our Lord seeks us to walk in victory and only obedience guarantees His kind of victory.

We will certainly get into sin once we lose touch with that.

Can we contextualize this for our times? Of course we can.

Many times God will give someone a great vision that he will pursue with utmost dedication. It then actualizes and starts bearing fruit, so much that he will require to get to the upper echelons of the structure to oversee its functioning. He gradually loses touch with the vision as he becomes the CEO of a structure that his vision created having no real contact with the vision as had been presented from heaven as he has become the ‘papa’ instead of the hands of the vision.

He will then start joining hands with other papas, many times without knowing their vision or even how or where they were got from. But that then becomes his circle.

Let me give an example.

A pastor is given an order to start a church in a desperate side of a desperate slum. Since he is following the orders of the Lord of the harvest, the church experiences exponential growth in a short time necessitating the planting another and then another in different slums or even the same slum. The speed is so fast that he is unable to even hear from God as the needs seems so urgent.

Of course everybody notices this. Other pastors crave that type of success in church planting and he is the new expert.

They therefore request that he hands over the churches to other pastors as he is created for greater impact as a church planting expert. And again the speed is so fast there is no time to consult with the Lord of the harvest as this new need appears so urgent and all those pastors couldn’t be wrong.

He therefore becomes a church planting executive, teaching pastors how to grow churches out of the desperation of the slums.

He is then given a new title, a new status and of course proper incentives so that he takes this new role.

Like Saul before him, things have gone so fast that he has been unable to know what it is the headquarters really wanted. It therefore becomes increasingly difficult to pray about any new offer he is receiving especially as the packages being offered obliterate the initial struggles and sacrifices he required with his initial step of obedience.

Of course his circles must change in line with his new status.

What does he live for at this point?

One thing that happens is that, like Saul, his prayer becomes an abomination to God who had called him. But it also becomes increasingly difficult for him to pray as, like Saul, he has gone so many steps without knowing what God wants from him. Where does he start with praying? Of course I am talking about personal prayer, what Jesus called the prayer closet.

The second thing is that he is surrounded by success once he loses that vital link to his Lord. He also has myriads who can swear by their lives that he is at the perfect place God needs him and will not only pour their all into that but also fight with all they have to protect him. And we also see that with God. Or do you not remember a whole priestly city was annihilated because they had ‘refused’ to report sedition that was a fiction of the king’s head?

Getting into actual sin is another very present possibility. And it will depend on the circles he moves with. By actual sin I am talking of these very open sins like adultery that are openly against their profession. I have heard very sad stories of very senior clerics who are whoremongers because the secret liaisons they have in those hovels (many times five star hotels since they have the money) cannot be hidden from all the hotel staff, some who are even bribed to swallow their disappointment with the ‘man of God’ instead of exposing it.

But even without getting into actual sin, he will have already been disqualified from the ministry God had called him to. This of course means that he will be running on his own fuel instead of the anointing of the One who had called him. Chances are very strong that he will, like Saul, look for an enemy who most probably would be the one the ministry he had rejected was given to, many times because the upstarts are pursuing it with ‘nothing’ and he had rejected it when it was fully packed.

How many zealous young men are being broken down because the spiritual leaders they have looked up to all their lives are doing their best to kill what God is asking them to do? I remember once talking to a minister friend of mine about the command I was pursuing after God gave me the word and he simply said that God cannot give such a command. Was it unbiblical? Of course any word God gives me starts with His word. But I think it rubbed him too roughly he was unable to hide it.

In short, his experience had led him to dismiss any word he disagreed with irrespective of whether it was scriptural or not.

Think of a young person saying that he had saved sex for marriage. You can’t imagine the rage, even hate, that meets them from other believers who had decided to throw in the towel in matters sex. You will be led to think that abstaining from sex until marriage is the ultimate sin. You may realize that some of the ones stoning him are shepherds.

You see, when you lose your focus there is only one way to go, down. That is unless you genuinely repent. That is why Saul is the example God has given us.

Or look at this believer that had sunk deep in sin and like the prodigal came back to themselves. They then look for an opportunity to testify what God had done for them and the so far they had strayed.

You will expect a celebration. Or won’t you? Yet they will find many friends and family so up in arms against their testimony. All because they have exposed what these others were unable or unwilling to face in themselves. They can’t appreciate repentance because they have refused to repent. They simply accepted their sinfulness and moved on like we like to say, without realizing there is no moving on with sin.

I haven’t followed the Kanye West’s conversion and its resultant ripples. But I won’t be surprised that the most vocal of his critics are scared that his conversion is genuine. You see it will show their Christian lives as hollow and shallow.

Why? We are not the ones who save. We neither hold the standard of that salvation nor have the list of those who are saved. The only thing we know is that there is joy in heaven over one sinner repenting.

Why then are we up in arms when one sinner repents?

We have lost sight of our enemy and must therefore create a new battlefield.

In simple terms we have backslidden like King Saul. We therefore must develop new rules for the Christian faith that will be consistent with our backslidden state.

Comfort will many times be the culprit.

Let me close with this verse that many people find difficult to associate with Sodom.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. (Ezekiel 16: 49, 50)

We say lack of exercise leads to a buildup of flab. That is exactly what happens in the spiritual realm when we lose touch with a consistent and committed relationship with God, especially listening and obeying His voice.