This is the paradox that the warrior has come to know. They know they are not the source of their own strength. The fire that burns within the warrior is an eternal fire. The warrior knows their strength because they know their weakness. It was Jesus who said, “Apart from the Father I can do nothing.”76 The warrior understands there is no weakness in this. The warrior has found their strength in their weakness. Jesus spoke to Paul about this: “My power is made perfect in weakness.”77 The way of the warrior is to know that God is our strength. The warrior boasts all the more gladly about their weaknesses so Christ’s power may rest on them.78
The warrior knows they were created by a God who is Spirit. Though we appear as flesh and blood, every cell in our body is energy. All our energy comes from God. What we do with our energy is up to us.
The ultimate expression of energy is light. The way of the warrior is to choose to be a warrior of light. The warrior never forgets the source of that light. The fire that burns within the warrior is a fire ignited by God. The strength of the warrior is a strength given by God. The power of the warrior is the power poured into them by God. The warrior is light because God is light. The way of the warrior is to choose the path where God himself is both light and life.
The first recorded words spoken by God were “Let there be light.”79 Light is energy in its purest form. We even speak of motion in its ultimate expression as moving at the speed of light. We now know that the entire universe is a manifestation of energy in an endless number of forms. Imagine the strength we would find if in our weakness we simply reached out, touched God, and received his strength. The ultimate expression of energy is not simply light but life. This is the strength of the warrior, that though they walk through darkness, they have found their strength in both light and life. The warrior stands in the darkness as a warrior of light. The way of the warrior is through the darkness, for they know that in its midst, they will be the light. The warrior must find the courage to face their darkness.
If your darkness is fear, then fear is what you must face.
If your darkness is bitterness, then it is bitterness that you must confront.
If your darkness is greed, then it is greed that you must conquer.
If your darkness is self-doubt, then here you must find your courage.
If your darkness is anger, then it is here that the battle must rage.
If your darkness is despair, then you must stare it down with hope.
If your darkness is hate, you must slay it with love.
You cannot move to the light without facing the darkness.
I was twenty years old when I was encouraged to choose a verse or passage from Scripture that I would make my life verse. I was so new to the faith that very little of the Bible was familiar to me, yet somehow I found the most obscure passage that resonated perfectly with my soul. In the midst of his turmoil and his great disappointment with God, Jeremiah stood in the middle of the fire and declared, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak any longer in his name,’ his words are like a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of keeping it in; indeed, I cannot.”80
Your energy will be determined by the fire that burns within you. And when the fire within you burns brightly, so will your life. When your fire has been set by eternity, no moment in time can snuff it out. The warrior never forgets that they are fire.
CODE 7
The Warrior Becomes One with All Things
The warrior becomes one with all things. They understand that it is the darkness that separates; the light brings all things together. When all things began, there was only one. God created man in relationship to himself. God created humanity in relationship to creation. God created man, he created woman, and the man and the woman became one. God is one in three and three in one, and everything he creates is interconnected. The warrior understands that the war is between light and darkness, between connection and disconnection, between oneness and fragmentation. The warrior understands themselves to have been created to be one with God, one with others, and one with creation. The warrior finds themselves when they are connected to all things.
Sometimes to see the whole picture, you must first see the missing pieces. We can understand our need for connectedness only by recognizing where we are disconnected. Our most obvious disconnection is with each other. What we long for most, we fear the most. We long for intimacy but are afraid of it. Humans are designed for relationships, yet relationships are at the center of our struggles. We know we are made for each other, as our souls suffocate when we lack meaningful relationships. We can see that we were created for connection by the intense consequences of disconnection.
When we are disconnected, we experience isolation and loneliness. If disconnection prevails, it turns to bitterness and disdain. You can see the outcome of disconnection wherever there is hatred, hostility, and violence. We divide by race and color and gender and economic and social status, but in the end these perceived differences are simply symptomatic of the fissures of our disconnection.
One of the powerful insights that Scripture allows us to see is the disconnection between us as a humanity that is symptomatic of our disconnection from God. Human brokenness is not an isolated phenomenon; it is the result of a break between us and God that was never intended to happen.
The account of Cain and Abel gives us an insight into the constructive power of connectedness and the destructive power of being disconnected. Before Cain kills his brother Abel, he severs his relationship with God. His disconnection from his brother was the outgrowth of his disconnection from his Creator. When Adam and Eve broke their relationship with God, it damaged their relationship with each other. And although you may not always see your disconnection from God, you can see the consequences of that distance everywhere.
Our identities are rooted in our connectedness. We know ourselves best when we are known best by others. When we are interconnected as a people, we do not lose ourselves but in fact find ourselves. Your tribe does not obscure your identity but reveals it. So it is in your relationship with God. As you come to know him, you come to know yourself. As you give yourself completely to him, you come to know yourself most clearly. If you want to find proof that we are created for connectedness with God, look at the fractures and friction between humanity and creation.
Every other species on this planet has an intrinsic connectedness to creation. Even species that we would consider as least valuable to the ecosystem continue to prove that they have unique and irreplaceable value. From insects to reptiles, from fish and birds to plants and trees, everything in the created order is interconnected and makes a unique contribution to the vitality of the whole.
It appears we are the only species who can violate the laws of instinct and nature and, in so doing, bring marked devastation to the creative world. How is it possible that an endless number of species living in the ocean can coexist without harming the balance of nature, yet one oil tanker created by man can virtually destroy an entire ecosystem? From my vantage point, every environmentalist in the world should believe in God, as somehow humans have the unexplainable capacity to treat nature in unnatural ways. As twisted as it may seem, humanity’s destructive capacity may be one of the strongest evidences of the existence of God. Humans are somehow both a part of nature and stand apart from nature. One of the clearest indications that humans are different from every other species on this planet is our ability to be out of harmony with creation. There simply is no other species that can create plastic. How is it possible that a species within nature could actually create anything that is not biodegradable? It may be that the best evidence that humanity has a broken relationship with God is that we have a broken relationship with nature.
I am convinced that when God initially set creation in order, he desired that the entire universe be interconnected. He created the universe as a reflection of his charact
er and glory. At the outset of human history, the people experienced complete connectedness to God, complete connectedness to each other, and complete connectedness to creation. When humans severed their relationship with God, they broke not only their relationship with their Creator but also the connectedness of humanity. Likewise, it disconnected us from proper relationship with creation. A significant consequence of the Fall was that the earth would no longer cooperate with the will of man; rather, it would now force us to toil and struggle instead of simply enjoying the benefits of the creation we had been entrusted to steward.
Even in our broken state of being, we still stand intimately interconnected to the created order. We walk within an atmosphere that provides the oxygen we need to live. Every second of our lives, we inhale creation and exhale into creation—our contribution to the creative process. Every time we take a drink of water or stop to eat a meal, we become one with creation. We receive from nature what is necessary for life.
We already have a profound connectedness to creation; we simply may be unaware of it. It is our disconnection that allows us to take without respect, to consume without gratitude, to own without responsibility. We are creators that exist within a creation, and this is extraordinary proof of God.
The warrior understands that they are part of a whole. They know they are most powerful when they are one, when they are undivided and committed to the whole. The warrior knows both that they are part of the entire universe and that the entire universe is a part of them.
The fullness of God dwelled in Jesus. It might be hard to imagine the entire universe existing inside one person, but Jesus experienced even more than that. The Creator of the entire universe dwelled in him! In the beginning the entire universe was designed for life. It is not an exaggeration to say that the universe was created for humanity’s fulfillment. The entire creation story is written in such a way that it points to humanity as God’s principal creation. Every movement in the creation story leads to God’s culminating act of creating humanity in his image and likeness. The universe was not created for God. He did not need it. The universe was created for us. The universe is our context for life.
I have heard many people express that they feel that the entire universe is against them. I would like to take a moment to correct that mentality. The entire universe, as it was created, is for you. If you are at war against God, you will also find yourself at war against people. If you are at war against people, you will also find yourself at war with the universe. The reason the universe is for you is because God is for you.
The warrior understands that everything is connected. You are more than the sum total of your parts. You are connected to the Creator of the universe. The good news is that creation is a part of the package. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. He “does not change like shifting shadows.”81 You are more than you know, so stop underestimating who you are. Who you are does not end at the border of your skin. How you became who you are can be attributed as much to the world around you as the world within you. We spend our entire lives trying to become our own people yet find ourselves disconnected and isolated as the result of our need for autonomy and independence. When we are immature, we convince ourselves that we must become strong enough not to need anyone or anything except ourselves, but we were never created to live like this. When we move toward maturity, we begin to understand the interconnectedness of all things. We were not created to be alone; we are not designed to do life by ourselves.
The warrior finds their uniqueness in their connectedness to all things. The superior warrior does not hold a sword; they become one with it. Your sword is everything in your creative process that becomes an extension of yourself. When you choose a sword, it becomes an expression of your own motion and intention.
You see this expressed with such elegance when you watch the artistry of legendary soccer players Messi and Ronaldo as they run down the field and move the ball with such ease toward the goal. We see it in the stroke of Picasso’s brush as both paint and canvas submit to his will. You see the same phenomenon when five basketball players somehow transform from five individuals into one united team. For three championships, the Golden State Warriors have reminded us that there is a synergy that creates a connectedness even in the spaces between them. When describing the challenge of facing the Warriors, LeBron James made clear that it was an issue of facing not just their superior talent but a superior team intelligence as well. The Warriors are a reminder to all who love the sport that not even five great players can beat one great team: their sixth man is the ball. When you watch them play, it feels as if the ball has a mind of its own, constantly moving through the space between the players, somehow always finding the player who is open and most likely to score.
The first man and first woman were supposed to become one flesh. How is it possible for two to become one in marriage or for five to become one on a basketball court or for eleven to become one on a soccer field? How is it possible for a young boy named Pelé, growing up in poverty in the favelas of Brazil, to become one with the ball, or for the samurai to wield their swords with such elegance and ease that it could not be any less than an extension of themselves?
I am convinced that all of us have experienced this phenomenon at least once in our lives—an unexplainable connection to another human being, to a moment, to God. It’s usually a moment in which we found ourselves bigger than ourselves, a moment when we knew things we should not have known and felt ourselves bigger than the sum total of our weight.
Years ago I was invited to Germany to speak at a leadership event. I will never forget the experience. There were approximately five thousand leaders from across the country in a convention center. Because I don’t speak German very well, I had to use a translator. I knew that my perspectives on leadership, faith, and culture would seem unorthodox to this particular audience.
In the middle of my talk, I made a statement that I knew would be provocative. When I heard the translator repeat my statement, I somehow knew he had stated the exact opposite of what I had just said. I stopped in the middle of my presentation, looked at the translator, and asked him in front of a live audience, “You just changed what I said, didn’t you?”
It would not be an exaggeration to say he looked a bit terrified in the moment. He didn’t respond right away, so I asked him again by being more specific. “You didn’t agree with what I just said, so you changed it to fit what you believe.”
There were five thousand witnesses in the room, so I imagine he felt compelled to be honest and simply responded, “Yes, you are right. I did change it.” He was perplexed and asked, “How did you know?” Which of course is a great question, since I’m not fluent in German.
How did I know? I can’t fully explain it, but I can tell you this: communication comes from the same root word as the word communion. If you listen carefully enough, you will hear so much more than words. Although I could not understand exactly what he was saying, I could completely interpret the essence. I knew exactly what he said and exactly what he did not say. My words are my sword, and I don’t simply speak them; they are a part of who I am. The translator didn’t know that changing the meaning of my words without telling me would be as obvious as trying to take a sword out of a warrior’s hand.
Even yesterday while I was working through the final edits of this book, I received a call from my agent, Esther Fedorkevich. She called to tell me that she was flying home and the person sitting next to her on the plane pulled out what happened to be my book The Last Arrow. What are the chances of that? What are the chances of two strangers sitting next to each other on a flight and one pulling out a book that both of them had in common?
She decided not to tell the other passenger that she was my agent and instead asked him about the book. He explained that he was a C-suite executive at a massively successful company and had been struggling with thoughts of suicide. He expla
ined that one of his friends gave him the book and that even though he did not believe in God, he knew he needed to find meaning in his life. After he shared his story, she shared with him that she and I knew each other and that she is the very agent who helped make that book happen. She called me to let me know that someone who was contemplating suicide was now searching for meaning and that I had become part of his story.
Either the world is full of random, unexpected coincidences, or there is more going on than meets the eye. I have experienced too much serendipity to believe in accidents. There is simply too much proof to deny that the universe is created with intention, that everything is connected, and that we are part of a larger story. I cannot tell you how many times someone has come up to me and told me they became convinced of the existence of God or the reality of Jesus because of a minor random phrase I happened to use in a talk or book that changed everything for them.
Yesterday I met a young woman who could not have been more than twenty-three years old. She told me that, a few months before, she had created a plan to end her life and had gotten all the necessary supplies. Before she could take action, though, she just happened to bump into someone who happened to invite her to Mosaic. She just happened to walk in one night and hear something that she thought could only have been specifically for her. I can’t even begin to describe the joy and connectedness I felt as she explained that she had decided to throw away everything she’d need to carry out her plan. She exchanged death for life, disconnection for connection, darkness for light.
I have lived too long to believe that these things are just coincidence. The warrior leaves nothing to chance and finds rest in their intention. The way of the warrior moves you into the path of interconnection. The path of the warrior is filled with an array of seemingly random and serendipitous moments. The warrior does not strive to create divine moments but feels confident that when they walk in their intention, those moments will come to them. The warrior’s courage comes in that even when they stand alone, they know they are never alone. The warrior knows that when they move in their intention, the universe moves in their direction.
The Way of the Warrior Page 14
