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Conquer What?

Conquer the water!  It was a campaign at the swimming pool.  I’m guessing that it was an attempt to get people, who are afraid of water, to learn to swim.  But the issue is really not about conquering the water; it’s about conquering our fear of the water.

Yet the campaign has a certain appeal to it.  If you are afraid of water, it’s probably easier to focus on conquering something you can see and touch (the water) as opposed to conquering something you can’t see and touch (your fear).

And conquering something does resonate with many.  The familiar usage of the word “conquer” is gain or acquire by force of arms.  Another aspect of conquering is to gain mastery over by overcoming obstacles or opposition.  It can also mean to overcome by mental or moral power. 

Given that conquering something has an attractive element to it, there’s a verse in Romans that seems to be the key to conquering anything and everything:

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”  (Rom 8:37)

We’d probably jump at the chance to be able to appropriate something that would allow us to conquer anything and everything.  But, I don’t think the verse above is designed to offer such resources.  And the previous verses provide context that indicates what we actually are to be conquering:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:  “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” (Rom 8:35-36)

From my reading of the passage, we don’t conquer the hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword; we conquer the fear of what those things might do to us and that fear is that we could be separated from the love of Christ.  And we conquer that fear by believing that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of Christ because nothing can diminish or change or negate His love for us.

It’s not the water that we conquer; we conquer our fear of the water.

It’s not the things that we think can separate us from the love of God that we conquer; we conquer our fear of being separated from God.  And that conquering requires faith not a force of arms! 

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