Written by: Steve Sisler. This is an excerpt from Gumnazo; lessons in fighting naked, copyright 2010. Follow me on Twitter so I can say I do that stupid social media crap.

“…There are some very fascinating stories surrounding King David’s three infamous Mighty Men in the Old Testament of the bible. Over the years I have found some of the greatest answers to life’s questions in some of the most obscure passages and I want to share some of them with you. These three characters had one thing in common; they refused to be enslaved by their enemy. One of those men, Josheb-Basshebeth, actually took on 800 men by himself because he didn’t want to be taken captive by his enemies against his will and enslaved by them. Funny thing about slavery, you never get to do what you want.

I fought a kid once in tenth grade and to my horror, was completely worn out within five minutes of wild swinging; the first two punches emptied my gas tank. How one man could take on 800 men is beyond my limited understanding. Next to him was Eleazar the Ahohite. He stood his ground against the Philistines while the entire Israeli army ran for their lives. He wiped out every one of them all by himself and was left with his hands actually “frozen to his sword.”1 What kind of people were these men? What creates this kind of determination?

What is it going to take to win your battles or for me to win my battles? Many of us appreciate the idea of fighting for something, but then just give up and watch American Idol on TV instead, or just go into the kitchen and eat another yodel, satisfied with the intent, but never really going through with the action. It’s like the intent is good enough for some misguided reason or attempting to change takes too much mental energy. This happens with me sometimes. I’ll intend to pray for someone and then just think of him or her instead. Or I’ll ponder about how awful their disease is and thank God I don’t have it too and that’s all I’ll end up doing. And then when I see them and they thank me for praying I feel like a fraud as I suppose I should. I just smile and say, “You’re welcome” and then feel like finding a nice quite place to gently hang myself.

I think we could all do a better job of this. When someone asks me to pray for them now, I usually do it right there. And I tell them that if I don’t pray right away, I might just go home and pretend I prayed or think about how awful their problem is and not do anything else. Being honest about it paves a way to fix it, but kidding ourselves solidifies the weirdness for sure and maybe forever…”