The Way of the Warrior

by Erwin Raphael McManus

  CODE 5

  The Warrior Owns Defeat

  The warrior knows that honor is not found in the victory. Honor is found in the nobility of the battle. If the battle is not worthy of the warrior’s life, there is no honor in its victory. In the same way, the warrior knows there is no dishonor in defeat. Failure and defeat are not the same. To fear defeat is to surrender victory. There is only a good fight and a good death for the one whose life is given to the noble. The warrior never claims victory for themselves but only for others. In the same way, the warrior never gives blame for defeat but owns it for themselves. The warrior owns defeat, and therefore defeat never owns the warrior. The warrior who lives and dies with honor enters eternity undefeated.

  The ancient samurai understood that even in defeat there was an honorable death, for if you never lose your honor, you cannot die in defeat. Both in life and in death, the warrior never relinquishes their power. They do not place blame nor abdicate responsibility. This is the life they have chosen. This is the path that called them forward. There is only defeat if you betray yourself and forsake your calling. The warrior’s legend is that they cannot be defeated.

  The warrior knows they are most powerful when they take ownership for everything entrusted to them, yet they claim ownership over nothing. The warrior takes complete responsibility while never holding tightly to anything. They take full responsibility without ever needing any praise. In this way, the warrior owns both everything and nothing.

  Because the warrior lives with open hands, nothing can be taken from them. The warrior is free from all things and therefore is free to enjoy all things.

  Everything is borrowed. Even those things that we consider our possessions will one day belong to someone else or perhaps to no one at all. That’s why in most cases the concept of ownership is an illusion. Ownership is not about possession; it is about responsibility. What you own matters far less than what you take ownership for. What you take responsibility for is far more important than what you think you own.

  One of the great traps on earth is to spend more of your time and energy trying to own things rather than owning your life. Your greatest stewardship is how you live the life you have been given. It is a strange thing that we can own something and abdicate ownership of ourselves. Without recognizing it, we all too often relinquish the ownership of our own lives to the slavery of another.

  Whatever the circumstances, when we hold someone else responsible for our lives or for the condition of our lives, we are abdicating the responsibility that has been entrusted to us. We are far more compelled by possession than by responsibility. We want to own, but we don’t want to take ownership.

  If you have taken ownership of your life, you have come to know your own power. You don’t stagger through life with a sense of powerlessness. You know who you are and that you are ultimately responsible for the future you create and the choices you make. Choosing doesn’t just happen; it’s how you make things happen.

  The Freedom of Responsibility

  Adam and Eve were placed in the middle of a garden and lived in what could only be described as paradise. In the garden, there were two trees that have become part of the infamous beginning of the human story: one tree that nurtured life, and one that would end it. Of course, God gave Adam and Eve a choice. Actually, God gave them endless choices.57

  As we saw earlier, that command was to eat freely. There were an endless number of trees in the garden from which they were allowed to eat as much and as often as they desired. However, there was one tree that they were forbidden to eat from. Because man was created free, this tree had to exist. Without choice, there is no freedom. Without freedom, there is no choice. God instructed the first man and woman not to eat of this tree, because this choice would lead to their death. You would think the ominous nature of the warning would have been enough to keep them from it, but as we know, it was not. They ate of the tree and for the first time came to know shame.

  Shortly afterward, God came to them, as I imagine he always did, but this time they hid because they were naked and afraid. God called to the man, and the man said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”58

  The Creator asked the most curious of questions: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”59

  The man’s response was quite unexpected. Rather than taking responsibility for what he had just done, he threw Eve under the bus. There is a bit of comedic irony in his response. He says to God, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”60

  In one sentence, the man blames everyone else involved except himself. He says to God, “The woman you put here, God, it’s your fault. I was doing great while I was here alone. You put her here, and your decision has led to my demise.”

  It’s interesting to note that the man’s first instinct was to blame God for the consequence of his own choice. Without missing a beat or wasting a breath, after blaming God, he blamed the woman: “She gave me some fruit from the tree. God, it’s your fault. And if you are unwilling to take responsibility then I have a backup plan for you. It’s the woman’s fault. In fact, it is everyone’s fault except my own. You put the woman here. She gave me the fruit from the tree. All I did was eat it.”

  Adam’s entire response to God was one of abandonment of personal ownership and responsibility for his actions. He played the victim and painted himself a passive participant in the crisis he himself had created.

  Then it seems God turned to the woman and asked her, “What is this you have done?”61 I kind of feel sorry for her. The man was able to answer first, so she had no one left to blame. He had already blamed God and already blamed her and postured himself as an innocent bystander. She must have looked around and decided there was only one party left to blame. Her response: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”62 She had fewer people to blame, but instead of taking responsibility for her own actions, she blamed the snake. In a strange twist, the snake had no one to blame but had in fact done exactly what he’d intended.

  If you’re not familiar with the story of the two trees, it’s important to understand that this was the moment in which humanity was introduced to death. What makes this exchange perplexing is that from every perceivable angle, the man and woman looked completely and fully alive. It’s hard to know that you are dead when you don’t know how to identify the symptoms. In one moment, humanity went from the fullness of life to mere existence, and the first symptoms of this change were shame and the birth of blame.

  The symptoms of existence are visible through all human history and within the heart of every individual who has ever walked this earth. If humanity were fully alive, all we would know is a world filled with hope and joy and love and meaning. Every human action would be an expression of generosity and compassion and kindness. The symptoms of mere existence are evidenced in our deep sense of disconnection, desperate loneliness, and prevailing meaninglessness.

  To not know love is to merely exist.

  To not have hope is to merely exist.

  To live without intention is a symptom that we have lost our lives and know only existence.

  God had entrusted everything to the man and woman. He had placed everything under their authority. He had given them ownership—not possession but responsibility—over all creation. There was no question about who was responsible. There was no room for blame shifting. Yet neither the man nor the woman took responsibility for their actions. Neither of them owned their choices. Both of them acted as if they were powerless and merely victims of a more ominous force that they could not resist.

  How difficult would it have been to have simply said, “It was my fault,” and take responsibility? “You gave me stewardship over creation, and I betrayed your trust.” Wouldn’t it have been far nobler for the man to sta
nd between God and the woman and say, “It was all on me. This is not on her”? Yet instead of standing as her shield, he threw her under the bus.

  This was not simply the beginning of blame, nor the end of taking responsibility. It was the end of love. If Adam loved Eve more than he loved himself, he never would have made this choice or placed the blame on her. His instincts shifted from self-sacrifice to self-preservation.

  Imagine being God in this moment, watching a creature you’d made in your image and likeness choose to protect himself rather than the one you had created for his love. Eve was unprotected because she was unloved. Adam acted in fear because he had lost the courage that only love can compel.

  Then again, the woman had her opportunity for ownership as well. After she watched her husband cower and abdicate responsibility for his choice, she could’ve taken responsibility for handing him the fruit. She could have stood before God and said, “I listened to the wrong voice. I made the wrong choice. Do with me as you will. This is on me.” But she didn’t do that either.

  It is not incidental that one of the first consequences of the Fall is the abdication of personal responsibility for our actions. To blame others is an act of cowardice. We blame in an attempt to hide our shame. This is not the way of the warrior. The warrior understands that to blame is not simply an abdication of responsibility but a relinquishing of power. You cannot change what you do not take responsibility for. When you blame someone else, you become dependent on that individual to solve your problem and change your circumstance. After all, if it is that person’s fault, then he or she is the only one who has the power to change your condition.

  The Weight of Responsibility

  Jesus once told a story that bears similar circumstances. Speaking of the kingdom of God, he told the story of a master who left three of his servants in charge of different portions of his wealth.63 One servant was given five talents, another two talents, and another one talent. A talent, during the days of the Roman empire, was a measure of weight, not a specific value. A talent would weigh about seventy-five pounds.64 So you could be entrusted with seventy-five pounds of gold or seventy-five pounds of silver or seventy-five pounds of copper. Though the weight would be the same, the value would be dramatically different.

  After the master had divided his wealth between them, entrusting each of them with an amount that matched his ability, he left on a great journey. During his absence, each servant was left to his own devices to do with the master’s wealth as he saw fit. In other words, they were left with endless possibilities. The servants had probably never known such great wealth. Even the one with only one talent would have had in his possession a relative value of almost $1.5 million.65

  What would you have done with $1.5 million? Over the course of many years, how would you have invested it? What choices would you have made to optimize the wealth entrusted to you. How would you have increased your master’s wealth and exceeded his expectations upon his return?

  Eventually there came a day when the master returned to take account of what he had entrusted to his servants. I suppose some of you are familiar with the outcome. The one who had been given five talents returned to his master ten. The one who had been entrusted with two talents had doubled his account to four. But the one who had been given one talent had made a decision to bury his resources and gave in return to the master only what had been given to him.

  The same question comes crashing into my mind when I think about both the man in the garden and the man who buried his talent: Why would you squander such an extraordinarily good opportunity?

  Through this parable, Jesus provides a perfect example of why ownership is not about taking possession of what’s in front of you but about taking responsibility for what has been entrusted to you. The men who multiplied the master’s wealth were not the owners of that wealth, but they did take ownership of it.

  When the one-talent servant explained to his master why he had buried his talent, we observe the very same pattern as we found with Adam and Eve: “Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.”66 His knee-jerk response was to blame the master for his lack of courage, initiative, and ambition. He basically said to him, “The way you are is the reason I am the way I am.” There is a striking contrast between the one-talent servant and his two peers. The other servants let us know the incredible potential that was available during their master’s absence, but the man who buried his talent could not see what he’d squandered.

  When you blame others, when you abdicate responsibility for your life, you become powerless to change it. Growing that talent was completely the servant’s responsibility, yet he was certain it was the master’s fault that he had failed. There is an unexpected relationship between blame and fear. Right after he blamed the master, he continued by explaining, “I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.”

  When you blame others for your failure, you become powerless to change the world around you. You begin to live your life filled with fear, paralyzed by uncertainty and embittered by a sense of victimization. Fear may cause you to abdicate responsibility, but the abdication of responsibility will most certainly cause you to live in fear.

  Ownership begins by owning your choices, by taking responsibility for your own life, and by making decisions to stop blaming others and finding someone else to hold at fault. It may seem counterintuitive, but there may be nothing more empowering than taking responsibility for your life. Trusting God is not an abdication of responsibility; it is an embracing of it.

  The problem began with Adam and Eve. They didn’t have the luxury of having parents to blame. They had the perfect environment in which to make the best choices. For the rest of us, it’s far more complicated than that. Yet although the world is filled with chaos and turmoil and making the right choice seems infinitely more complicated now than in the garden, we must not be deterred. We have been entrusted with the power of choice. Those things we would entrust to only God he has entrusted to us. It is still in our power to create a better world. The fate of humanity’s future has been placed in our hands. We must never abdicate responsibility, for with it comes endless possibilities. The future awaits those with the courage to create it. Never forget that when you own defeat, it can never own you. So take ownership of your life, your future, and the world around you, for you can change only what you own.

  No-Fault Policy

  Sometimes we feel paralyzed by a past we didn’t choose. We find ourselves broken and even traumatized by things that happened to us and not because of us. I have known way too many people who were carrying the weight of their pasts while trying to walk into new futures. From actions of neglect and abuse, violence and addiction, abandonment and mistreatment, there are many legitimate reasons people struggle to re-create themselves. We bear so many wounds that seem to make healing elusive.

  I would never discount the devastating effects of wounds not bought but given. You had no choice about where you were born or to what family you were born into. I completely understand why so many people carry not only wounds but bitterness like a noose around the neck. It is not easy to convince someone to forgive when there is no contrition from the offender. It may be one of the most difficult things in this world to let go of bitterness when it has been the only dam holding back the tears.

  Taking responsibility when something is your fault makes perfect sense, but it’s a tough pill to swallow that you need to take ownership over your circumstances even when they’re not your fault. Here is the hard reality: even if it’s not your fault, it’s still your responsibility.

  Though the wounding wasn’t your fault, the healing is your responsibility.

  Though your past may not be your fault, your future is your responsibility.

  Though their choices were not your fault, your choices are your respons
ibility.

  Don’t let those who are at fault keep their hold on your life by relinquishing your power to change and to be free of them. Bitterness is how your soul lets you know they still have power over you. Hatred traps the poison inside you. Only love and forgiveness allow you the power to move forward.

  Anger is not your strength; intention is. Every person you have not forgiven, everything in the past that holds you, has stolen a part of who you are. One of the greatest battles of the warrior is to reclaim the territories of the soul.

  We are reminded by Paul that we have been bought with a price and within us there is great treasure. The servant who buried the talent thought it was enough to say to the master, “I hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”67 He had convinced himself that all he was responsible for was what had been handed to him. The truth is that we are responsible for far more than what we have been given; we are responsible for what could have been done with all that we have been entrusted with.

  Response Ability

  There is a relationship between personal responsibility and risk. One of the curious things about people is that we have an unexpected and extreme variation when it comes to the way we perceive ourselves in relationship to personal responsibility. When they’re facing failure, some instinctively assess and attribute blame to outside forces: It was the economy. It was management. It was someone else.

  Then there are others who relate to risk from a polar opposite. When they are assessing failure, their perspective is completely internal: I failed to make the right choices. I didn’t work hard enough. I lacked the talent to pull this off. These assessments are less rooted in reality than in psychology. It’s less about what is real than how we perceive reality.