In the Trenches

I missed a post (smacking my forehead)...and of course, it was the day I went back to work after vacation.

While in West Virginia...we stumbled across an amazing historical place.  Fort Mill Civil War trenches, 3 miles west of Romney, West Virginia, is considered possibly the most well preserved Civil War trenches that exist.  If you look in the photo, you can see the trenches built over 150 years ago.  To make the trenches was backbreaking, manual labor.  To be in the trenches means to be in the thick of the fight...no room for slackers as you hold their ground.

It is easy to take the time, not just to write about renewing your mind, but actually doing it, when you are on leave, in the mountains, with no pressure of time or schedule, and enjoying some R&R.  But that's not reality.  Reality is...in the trenches.

And so it is in the trenches...in the day-to-day...where the real work of life is done...the grunt work...the hard, the dirty, the menial work where I am challenged most to take the time to renew my mind in God's word.  Yes, time is a luxury I don't often feel I have.  But, it is in the trenches under attack, where I CANNOT afford to NOT make that time happen.

Put on all of God's armor, so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.  For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places.     Eph 6:11-12 (NLT)

And I'm back in the trenches, where the real tests come.