The Vision.
We have a real enemy, and it isn’t ourselves.
A picture of a battlefield. Bombs are being thrown everywhere.
It is smoky, dark and cloudy. Cloudy from the dust of the ground exploding all around, from the smoke of the fires gutting the earth.
Screams rent the air. Fires are blazing all around a field that looks burned out and dug up.
In the middle of the field, a lineup of women on one side and men on the other side.
Both sides are screaming at each other.
Faces contorted, veins straining, fists raised, fingers stabbing accusations at each other, bodies leaning forward in defiance and anger.
It seems like there is a clear line between both sides, a line that cannot be crossed, an invisible line.
The line starts with women and men wearing 18th-century clothing and as the line progresses, the dresses change to reflect the changing culture from that time till now. Women wear men’s dresses and men wear women’s dresses, but the interaction is still the same. The tension, the yelling, the screaming, the anger.
Then at the end of the line, a woman and a man stand across each other.
They stare at each other, unaffected by the turmoil and chaos beside and around them.
Everything about their features is highlighted; their eyes are the same, ears, noses, and lips. Everything about them is the same.
The woman is wearing a dress that looks like it has an apron attached.
The man is wearing clothes that have suspenders attached. They are each holding a child.
Their bodies lean into each other. The woman is holding a child whose arms are outstretched. The man is also holding a child whose arms are outstretched.
Both children clasp their hands across the invisible divide and the man, and the woman clasp their hands across the line as well.
Meanwhile, bombs are raining down in the distance and approaching this long line of men and women.
The enemy has convinced us that we are each other’s enemies. The man and the woman. He has pitted us against each other, we who are made in the image of God. He has convinced us that we are different from each other and that our differences must be overcome, tamed, subdued, and even destroyed.
He has made us a threat to each other; And he distracts us with the fighting over our differences, with the competition for the things that are the same.
He has torn our children from our arms and has flung them across the battlefield where their screams rent the air while we face off with each other instead of linking hands to face the battle around us.
We have a real enemy, and it isn’t ourselves.
It is not woman; she is soft and beautiful.
It is not man; He is full of grit and ardour.
Her softness and beauty are the greases to the grit and ardour.
She is fitted for him. He is fitted for her.
We are fitted for each other. In fitting, we are an image, a picture that the children look at and see the image of the one who created us.
Now that we are lined up against each other, the children see nothing, feel nothing, and become nothing.
The enemy who is filled with rage that he has no one in his image, seeks to destroy the ones who are made in the image of the creator.
He comes and he comes for the children, he comes for the generation of people bearing the image and the seal of God and we are letting him.
We are letting him. WAKE UP!
