Warfare against self
Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church
When my father died in the early 1990s, I inherited some of his books, including a well-worn devotional called Steps to Christ, which he had during World War II.
On the cover is an American and an Australian flag with the words, “The services edition.” Inside, my father had written his name and rank and that he served with the 12th Australian Army Troops, with the engineers, in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.
The book is soft covered and a tattered, but it has held together well. When I received it, I read it over a couple of weeks. It was a moving experience, particularly when I came to passages he had underlined.
Dad never talked much about his war experiences. I do remember the old, ankle-length army coat he wore on cold mornings when he went fishing—he was a professional fisherman. Sometimes he’d point to holes in the coat and say they were bullet holes from when he single-handedly pushed the enemy off Shaggy Ridge—a site of heavy fighting. I’d say the holes looked suspiciously like moth holes. Besides, if Dad’s claims were true, they would have changed the face of warfare forever—he served as a noncombatant.
I once visited Rabaul. I have a mental picture of Dad, probably on a beach (where else would a fisherman go?), reading Steps to Christ.
One day, perhaps on one of the beaches, he underlined this: “The warfare against self is the greatest battle that was ever fought.”
He knew about war. He was involved in the war that mobilised the greatest ever number of men and women. Yet he recognised the truth concerning the war we all face—the one within.
It’s a war we win by surrendering. To God.
Tags: Bruce Manners