Weapon of Mass Construction: Spirit

Violence surrounds us, the reality and threat. We engage battle with forces seeking to diminish spirit, to such a degree that many will read these words mockingly and with a haughty disdain (if this is true, I’m sorry and pray for you). Defence is called for, and so our best defensive position must be spirit first, as are we. Stand firm in true conviction, all the more so as the world around us wavers.

Spiritual warfare is more than ceasing sin and causing others to do the same; it is about inculcating the sacred within: truth in honest humility, freedom of goodness, beauty as promise, the divine oneness of God whom underlies all existence, and the faith in Him which strengthens with our internal alignment. This is where the virtues of justice, courage, and willpower come most into play. To engage in spiritual warfare is to recognise that the battle for truth is necessarily designed as never-ending, and that we are called to fight not with weapons but, with an unshakeable faith from which flows, all of our words and deeds.

Imagine having the power to instantly terraform the battlefield in your favour before bloody engagement. Together we transform the world, through the power of virtuous conviction, and shift the entire battlefield forward and up. A knight in service to Christ is a tower of strength, as individual embodiment of an order approaching the divine, rather than cowering and lost. We resist the pull of nihilism, materialism, and moral decay. Consistent actions ripple outward as proof of true faith, inspiring others to rise against the darkness and to reclaim their place in the light. What did those martyrs of old know? They served God unto death, willingly giving themselves over to His Will, rather than their own.

This idea echoes structural virtues theory once more, where patience, conservation, prudence, and ethics are pillars of spiritual warfare, opening our thoughts to higher inspirations and assuring the onset of the aforementioned justice, courage, and willpower. To wage war on the forces that seek to corrupt the soul requires time and wisdom: the the ability to endure without succumbing to despair and the discernment to choose the right path at the right moment, which God reveals.

Ultimately spiritual warfare is in defending what is true, taking all sides in their best outcomes; honouring many yet trusting few: in God’s example. We act by choosing to stand for goodness in a world that most often seeks to minimise it. To attain spiritual warfare is to recognise that the greatest victory is not over an enemy per se, but over our own inner demons as well as theirs: the fears, doubts, and temptations that lead all astray and away from truths.