God of the Fighters

St John presents God as the God of the living in his gospel of Jesus Christ; he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. God cannot belong to the realm of the dead, those who have crossed the threshold of life and have passed into the netherworld. God by his very nature is living, and his life gives life to the world. Therefore we cannot think of God as anyone different from the living. No wonder then that St Peter in his famous declaration of his faith to his Master, calls him as the “Son of the living God”. What a wonderful title for Jesus, whose life was characterized by life, life in its fullness. He had life overflowing in him, and all those who were living life half-heartedly, began to brim with the fullness of life, which made his enemies shudder.

God takes the side of those who dare to take life as it came, and not those who ran away from it. God invites the daring to fight, even with him, and he is sure not to impose his power and might on the weak creatures, but gives due weightage to the fight. The Old Testament presents such a beautiful picture of Abram fighting with God, and is also rewarded for his boldness to wrestle with the Mighty God. Abram becomes Abraham, and he gets a new identity, after winning over God for his side, and I tend to believe God would have been delighted to “fight” with his servant Abram, very much like bitches love to play with their puppies, and they have so much of fun in the play. God invites his children to even fight with him, so that they might grow from strength to strength.

The Bhagavad Gita too presents such a God who beckons his disciple to go fighting, and not to shy away from his responsibility. Arjuna refuses to fight the battle, resolving to retreat, because it would be dishonor to fight with one’s own kinsmen. It is easy to give up at the thick of the battle, and it takes a lot of guts to go forward, unaware what fate awaited him. Arjuna might have also been afraid of the consequences; what if he were to lose the battle? It takes the whole of the Bhagavad Gita for Lord Krishna to instruct Arjuna, so that he might go forward to fight, come what may. He was not to think about the fruits of his labor, but only do his duty. That is why at the end, Arjuna surrenders to the Divine Lord, saying ‘karishye vachanam tava’ (I have resolved to do your will). That is when the actual battle is won.

The world unfortunately has more losers and retreaters than fighters; there are too many fears stopping even those who have the strength to fight the battle. There are bad companions who counsel in wicked ways, and there are circumstances which puts off even the valiant soldiers. Life’s battle does not come with too many risks; there are difficult times and hardships, but they can never destroy a person; what can really destroy a person is his or her unwillingness to take the fight and do it to the best of his/her ability. Those who wish to run away from the battle are the losers in all the cases. For the brave, no army is too large to win; it is the inner battle that one has to win before winning the physical war. This is the wonderful lesson that many of the biblical stories present to us.

Let me end with yet another beautiful story from the Bible, and this time a boy dares to fight with a monster, and defeat him. No one can take David, the shepherd boy, when he approaches Saul to fight against the monstrous Philistian’s Goliath. The boy is made a laughing stock, which the boy has the heart of steel, and he knows for sure to defeat this monster, what he needed was not physical prowess, but spiritual strength, and the boy had in abundance. And we are amazed at the way the boy swings the catapult and drowns the giant. No one can believe that was possible for a boy who knew only to tend his sheep, but David is a warrior who won the battle of the heart before defeating his enemies, and he invites today every one of us to our battles, here and now!