country, yes, but... killed by one of their own? The
senselessness. The pointlessness. The pain of loss, deepened
even further by the pain of needless loss.
Sadly, this type of tragedy isn’t only a reality on foreign
battlefields; it’s also happening far too frequently on ours. The
number of wounded on the military record books pales in
comparison to the number of human hearts that have been
disparaged and broken by fellow believers, by people who
were supposed to be fighting with us, not against us—like the
person we exchanged rings with, or the lifelong friend we
shared our secrets with, or the fellow congregants we go to
church with.
But when it happens in these circles, it’s no accident.
Friendly fire in the church or in our most vital relationships is
almost always code for enemy activity. He knows his odds of
success jump markedly whenever he can cause heart-
wrenching division between us, isolate one or two of us, and
separate us into warring or stonewalled camps. We cannot
leave these kinds of openings for the enemy to infiltrate.
So one of our most important strategies—a call for our most
fervent praying—must be to stand against all forms of