It seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? Or ought to be –

I woke up from a nap a little while ago, and I must have been dreaming about the paper I have to write for one of my courses, because I had this general topic, spiritual warfare, on the brain, and my first really conscious thought was –

But the place spiritual warfare begins is with our own conversion.

duh!

I’ve been told (by my ex-husband, you understand) that I have a maddening habit of over-stating the obvious, so I apologize to all of you who saw it before I did. But it’s so easy to pick up causes and dream grandiose dreams and see magnificent visions… while buried to our knees in the muck that is the worldly world. We really do have to ground our sense of living counterculturally in our conversion.

The initial conversion is like going into the recruiter’s office and enlisting in the army – the rest of our time is going through various trainings and being sent on various missions. They don’t let you stay still in the Army; they keep you moving forward – once you finish this rotation of duty, you go serve this other place, or you’re assigned to this other location for more training in a particular skill.

Spiritual warfare is simply part of being part of the Church Militant.