When one talks of great battles and crises and wars in history, our minds flashback to the First and second world Wars, to the battles between Hutus and the Tutsis of Rwanda, to the Indian battles between the Hindus and Muslims, or the Roman battles and those fought by the great Achilles and co, or how the Ethiopians fought with lions to prevent themselves from being colonized, or those of Muhammad involving the Arabians from Mecca and Medina, or if we come down home in Nigeria, in recent times one could talk of the wars fought by Queen Amina and co, or the recent Agatu- Fulani battles or the Nigerian army- Boko Haram battles as the greatest of battles.
Hmmm, yes, these are battles that have led to brutality and raw violence, massacres and bloodshed, red rivers and rainy eyes, shattered futures and scattered destinies, mass burials and hungry pits. It’s a pity humanity had to go through all these and are still passing through these at different parts of the world but permit me to propose that indeed these battles have cost a lot of lives, but they still are not the greatest battles in history.
These were battles, yes! but they were only between persons and peoples; but to a great extent, they sprang from the very first battle that individuals failed to conquer and helped others to ignore theirs too. The failure to conquer in this battle results to, instigates and becomes the essence behind these wars we see happening around us.
This war that I am talking about is the war between the FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. Hmmmm...
‘why can’t we separate these two (flesh and spirit)?’
Now, to exist as a human being, as the angelic doctor Aquinas puts it, he or she must have drawn existence from their creator, by this, their substances gets to be made up of two constitutive elements, namely; the body (matter) and soul (form). When these two are put together in the womb, they form a human being. Listen carefully to this, when a man and a woman come together to 'know' themselves, what they do biologically is to form the flesh in the womb, it’s then left for God to put into the foetus the spirit which comes to dwell there right from conception in the womb, then the child is no more like other animals, but has taken up the likeness of God to be a being in the image of his or her creator.
Having known that, we would then ask ourselves, ‘why should two things come together to unite and form a compound thing or composed substance and yet be constantly at war with each other, each refusing to submit to the other and seeking to dominate the other, from the very first day of the person’s existence to his very last? Why? It is like saying that Oxygen and Hydrogen that constitute water are always fighting in water, or better still, two nations forming allies to conquer another nation and then fighting each other right in battle instead of facing the nation they seek to conquer.
So why I call this battle the greatest war is because it is the most difficult and most painful; the war from within; the unseen battle; the greatest genocide, and comparing it to the other physical battles is like comparing flogging to toothache.
Why it would last forever…
This mystery I cannot fully fathom, but one of the strong reasons is the fact that the world and our being is full of imperfection, and this we must live to overcome, as St Anselm tells us that the closer a being is to the creator, the more perfect it becomes and Aquinas in grading angels and humans said angels are more perfect simply because we humans are farther from God and closer to the world compared to the angels, which is true.
Oh, the problem of their conflict…
Since the body and soul combine to form humans, they ought not to battle themselves like sets of kids pulling a chord to either sides with a line between, but here, the spirit yearns to dominate as well as the flesh. The thing is, they both seek different things, different ends.
When the spirit temporarily wins in us, the flesh visits from time to time to tempt us to take trophy, and when it wins, we then go the way of the world and the soul leaves us restless by using our consciences in turn to continue to trouble us to come back no matter how comfortable we may seem.
So it’s either you are soaked in the spirit and continue to battle the concupiscence of the flesh or you are immersed in the world and dominated by earthly desires and bodily pleasures and receive torture from your soul.
While the soul seeks purity and heavenly things above, let me tell you, the flesh pulls you downwards and backwards to sin, it is then that you would find yourself becoming worldly, cunning, selfish, greedy, envious, adulterous, fornicating, gossiping, proud, lustful, arrogant, stealing, giving in to anger and idle worship, occultism and all what not. These things take over your entire being and that is where it kills peace at all levels and breeds wars and physical battles like family conflicts, farmers-herders clashes, community wahalas, religious-extremisms, office competitions, quarrels and crises and wars between boundaries and countries.
We catch criminals and terrorists and imprison them without rehabilitating them to fight this inward battles. we seize their armunitions and release them thinking that is all, but if we haven’t seized these weapons from their hearts, our efforts would remain worthless and not yield any effect, ‘we never can force a horse to drink from the stream remember?’
In summary, even if you do not take home anything, Johnzion is saying to you today, stop taking pleasure in fighting others, stop striving to pull others down, you’ve got enough battle for the rest of your life to fight with, which the battle from within, the battle against the 'flesh'. Why not concentrate on how to overcome that one first? Well, as you think about that, reflect also on these last words, ‘if your soul wins your flesh here in this world till death, the reward would be that your soul would take your body along to heaven, but if on the other hand your flesh conquers your soul, it would carry your soul along with it to eternal damnation, I mean- to hell. The choice is yours to make. Stop blaming the devil for your wrong deed, you gave him the opportunity to do what he has been doing with and to you. Start knowing yourself and fighting your weaknesses, see, God does not send people to hell, he only honours their wish. 'Life is short, enjoy it, eternity is long, PREPARE for it'.