The firemen who ran up the stairs of the World Trade Center on 9/11 when everyone else was rushing down in panic—what made them do it? The young men who so bravely put themselves between the gunman and their fellow students during those school shootings—what enabled them to do it? The Warrior. It is hardwired into every man.

Remember as a boy, wanting to be Spider-Man or a Jedi Knight? Every man wants to be strong; every man wants to live a powerful life. Because man is made in the image of God, who is the Great Warrior. Like Father, like son. God gave you a warrior heart because you were born into a world at war. Surely you are aware of this—your life is opposed. Your love is opposed. Your hopes, your dreams, your friendships, your joy—all fiercely opposed.

How much hardship a man will endure, how long and tenaciously he will persevere, is determined by the warrior within him. A man may have a job he hates under an arrogant boss, but if he sees it as warrior training, he will endure. A man in a difficult marriage can persevere only if he finds the warrior inside. The heart of the warrior says, “I will put myself on the line for you. I will not let evil have its way. There are some things that cannot be endured. I’ve got to do something. There is freedom to be had.”

It's time to quit asking, “Why is life so hard?” and take the hardness as the call to fight, to rise up, face it down, set your “face as flint,” as Jesus had to do to fulfill his life’s greatest mission (Isaiah 50:7). You are a warrior, and your destiny is to join the Great Warrior in his battle against evil.

And, by the way, Jesus was not the poster child for pacifism; he wasn’t the World’s Nicest Guy. Christianity does not ask men to become altar boys; it calls them up as warriors.