In Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote fought giants that were actually harmless windmills.  He saw it as his challenge, his duty, and his CHANCE to be something more than he or others thought they could be.

To face a GIANT and DEFEAT something much larger than you are.  Even to be defeated in such a grand way - to lose one's life facing some almost insurmountable odds.

It's romantic, isn't it, in a way?  And who here hasn't done the same thing?  Imagining, if we were called, to run into a burning building and save a stranger's child?  Could we face that challenge?  Even if it meant dying for someone else?

Think about other instances - like seen in "Titanic"...having to be one of the MEN that stayed behind when the women and children made it onto the  rowboats, knowing an icy death awaited you.

I've been reading Fox's Book of Martyrs, as well as a LOT of posts here on mychurch as well as elsewhere on the internet that made me think of this subject.

We've got a screwed up economy (not just the US now - it's almost world-wide).  We've got environmental issues.  We have what I consider equal numbers of radical ATHEISTS and MUSLIMS attacking our faith.  We have wars with no foreseeable future to them, and agitations with other countries that could flare up at any time.

I'm not saying that we AREN'T near the end times, or maybe even IN the beginning of the end now.  But maybe we're not.  

I truly believe too many of us Christians WANT a windmill to fight... we want a GRAND challenge of something much larger than us to come upon us, to threaten what we care for, in a grandiose fashion...

So, in one breath we pray for strength to face a possible president that has been placed in the running as some deep conspiracy to make America a muslim nation (though the atheists hate them as much as they do the Christians and that probably wouldn't happen)...because we have a part of us that wants to have the BIG challenge like those martyrs of the past had - some REAL, AGONIZING way to show what our faith is.

Maybe it will come to that.

But isn't it just as big a challenge to walk up to someone in a park, and talk to them about the Gospel?  And, at the end of the day, isn't the chance that your sharing the Word with a person would have a GREATER impact (that person's eternal salvation) than the romanticized idea many of us have of a coming persecution?

I'm not saying we shouldn't be wary of the world...but we should ALWAYS be wary of this world.  We are not OF THIS WORLD.

I'm also not saying that we won't possibly HAVE to face a coming persecution where our faith will be tested.  But as Christians, we will be taken home before His wrath is fully poured out over the earth.  

Wouldn't our time be better served trying to reach those that could join us on that day of rapture, rather than swinging our swords at a perceived giant?

Because if that giant is taking our hearts and minds off the focus of the MAIN REASON WE ARE STILL HERE - The Great Commission - then maybe it's doing it's job without having to attack outright.