Life is a struggle. Moment by moment we are wrestling, really, grappling with difficulties, demands and demons. Invisible enemies like fear, blame, fault or remote enemies like news reports or scientific predictions haunt our waking and our sleeping.

Where are they? Am I just making this up? I don’t see any opponents. Still, I’m being thrown to the ground and getting back to my feet only to be slammed to the ground again.

Who are you, opponent? Where are you? Show yourself!

“The battle is the Lord’s,” young David said of Goliath and the Philistines. But David still had to wage it. Arm himself. Load his stones in his sling. Hurl them accurately and with force. He used his smarts and his capability to defeat a much larger, stronger opponent who he saw as defeated already.

When I give the battle over to the Lord, he exposes my enemy. It’s as if God stands above my struggle (or perhaps to the side to avoid the slosh and rough and tumble) and douses my enemy with a bucket of brightly colored paint.

In an instant, my invisible opponent takes shape. As the paint drips down, the form of the other appears. The outline, the bulk, the whole self. Honestly, it’s a relief to see it is real. And now I can see him for what he really is: a coward not a contender, and one who shrinks back from me and the army at my side.

There is no contest. This battle is the Lord’s, and I am a more than able competitor.