Jonathan Evans urged Christians to cease fighting their battles on their own and offers a playbook for navigating through difficult times.
Jonathan Evans, son of Pastor Tony Evans and a former NFL linebacker and sports chaplain, has written a book to help Christians through difficult times.
Evans draws on both his seminary education and personal experiences in his latest book, Fighting Your Battles: Every Christian’s Playbook for Victory.
In an interview with The Christian Post, the brother of Priscilla Shirer, a Bible teacher, expressed gratitude for the opportunity his family has been given to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Evans reflected on the many ways in which God had blessed his family and explained that it was all thanks to God’s intervention that he and his relatives were allowed to speak out in support of the Kingdom.
It is our goal to be a benefit to what He has asked us to accomplish, and we are grateful for any opportunity to do so.
Having endured numerous tragedies in recent years, the Evans family is no stranger to hard times.
“Evans, who is the chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks, once stated, “There are only three places you can be in life: in the storm, on the way to the storm, or out of the storm.”
My father likes to explain it this way: “It’s like the mail that comes to your mailbox that just reads inhabitant,” which indicates, “We don’t care who lives here; the simple fact that you reside here means you’re going to get this.”
Evans and his loved ones have experienced hardship themselves, so they can relate to those who are suffering and want the world to know that they are not alone in their experiences.
“Because God has already provided us with a strategy for winning, I made it a point to outline that strategy for you.
When Jesus told us, “In this world, you will have trouble,” He wasn’t lying. But He also told us, “You can be still and have joy, because it’s already been overcome.” “And if it’s already been overcome, then I feel like we need to learn how not to fight for victory, but to fight from victory,” he said.
The book has QR codes at the end of every three chapters that can be scanned to watch a short film.
Evans and his wife Kanika share their story of overcoming personal hardships like Evans’s four miscarriages.
The material gives readers resources for coping with pain and adversity of this kind.
When God tells us to battle, we must fight to win “As Evans stated.
In the past few years, eight members of Evans’s family have passed away, including his mother, Lois Evans, who passed away in December 2019. Despite this, Evans said God sent him a word to give during his mother’s eulogy.
“Evans told CP, “If you didn’t see my eulogy for my mom, there was absolutely a word from the Lord that He spoke to me to heal me.
“That was a tough one for me to wrap my head around; after all the praying and all the biblically-based things we did, we felt tremendous disappointment and a great deal of pain.
“But then I understood that I had a flawed notion of victory, basing it not on what Christ has truly done but on my own subjective assessment of how things had gone.
Prayer is a discourse, and God just spoke to me plain as day as I was mocking, disappointing, and frustrating Him.
“To which I replied, “Well, you just don’t understand my win,” and he responded.
I understand how difficult it was for you to witness your mother’s death; nevertheless, how do you think I felt when my perfect Son gave his life so that she may continue living?
You see, you’re essentially attacking me without considering what true success entails.
Your mother has provided for your every need, but not on a human scale but rather a spiritual scale that transcends your own.
Evans claimed that he begged God to save his mother’s life, and that God granted his request.
He preferred that she be with relatives, and she is.
As he had hoped, her health has fully returned.
He assured her that she would never get sick again, saying, “God saved her in totality.”
Athletes, according to the ex-athlete, have a right to express their sorrow, but they shouldn’t let that sadness prevent them from celebrating God’s ultimate victory, which is not a passing one.
“Evans emphasized, “We don’t grieve as those with no hope when I realize the sacrifice that Jesus made in His death as someone who is flawless and what that means for my mother now and what that means for me eventually.”
“Saul’s armor was almost on me.
This means that I almost adopted a more natural or humanistic point of view.
And God was saying, “No, be sure you preserve the perspective you’ve been schooled in.”
The Bible says that David learned to be a shepherd.
I had to recall that I had been trained in the victory of Jesus Christ in order to get beyond this challenge: “He’s not supposed to put on the armor; he wasn’t trained in that.
Evans remarked that if you’re having trouble moving forward in your fight, it’s because you’re trying to handle the situation on your own instead of turning it over to God.
“The difficulty, he continued, is that people “own their battles; they own their troubles,” despite the Bible’s teaching that “the war is not yours, it is the Lord’s.” However, if people insist on taking responsibility for their problems, God is willing to let them.
“We frequently attempt to appropriate God’s domain.
The moment your sanity begins to unravel is the moment you know you’ve entered God’s domain.
To put it another way, you don’t have the legal authority to own the things you currently possess.
It’s finally starting to hit you.
You are experiencing it, but you are a caretaker, not the owner.
The majority of people are unaware that “stewardship is not merely with money,” Evans explained.
Stewardship, as the Bible defines it, “is not limited to the care with which you manage the material possessions God has entrusted to you; it also includes the way in which you manage the struggles through which you are currently passing.” If you view yourself as the owner of the battle, you will bear the burden that is inherent to the battle; if you view yourself as the steward of the battle, you will recognize that both the outcome and the burden belong to the Lord.
A verse from Matthew 11:28 was then cited: “Come to me, all ye who are tired and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, take this load upon Me, for it is easy and my yoke is light.”
According to Evans, this verse from the Bible represents the fellowship that God seeks to establish with those who call on Him.
“He elaborated on Proverbs 3:5-6, saying, “Trust in Me with all your heart; do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge me, and I will make your paths straight.” The little ox wants to take the burden from the big ox, but it’s too much for us to bear. Instead, we should cast our cares upon the Lord, and He will sustain us.
To paraphrase, “God is attempting to accept responsibility, but He won’t take it from an owner; He’ll only take it from a steward if you look at the context of Scripture.”
He went on to say that people should entrust their problems and conflicts to God.
“If you give it to Him, how do you know He will use it?
When you let go of your need to control the situation’s outcome, “you’re no longer burdened by it,” he stated.
When you reach that point, you’re no longer trying to control the outcome because you’re no longer carrying the weight, even if it’s still there.
You’re not going crazy anymore; instead, you’re putting your faith in God and surrendering control to Him.
You can enjoy freedom.
So, the key to liberation is letting go.
Nothing is ever wasted in God’s universe.
Referring to the biblical account of Joseph, he stated, “He uses everything.” God even utilized Joseph’s suffering to further his mission.
“When you understand that God does use the pain that you’re going through, he actually puts it in the pot, stirs it with all of the experience, passions, gifts, skills, and opportunities, and he serves it up for the greater ministry that He’s calling you to later,” Evans said.
“We must realize that a testimony is not a testimony unless it has been tested, and that if we go through the test and come out on the other side with something to show for it, we will have a more powerful witness when God chooses to utilize it.
Evans emphasized that Jesus can empathize with the shortcomings of humans because He has done it, and that Jesus is not asking people to do something that He has not already done.
Evans issued a warning to Christians that the adversary is ready to strike if they neglect to trust on God and try to fight their battles on their own.
“When facing a well-prepared defense, “it’s practically difficult to go out onto the field of play without a playbook,” he explained.
When you go out into the world and face an enemy, remember that he not only has his own playbook, but also knows yours and has studied film of your habits.
The adversary has access to the Scriptures.
He’s seen your movie and is aware of your methods, and we Christians go out there and wonder why we’re being beaten up.
“Well, we’re losing because we’re not preparing properly; we’re not watching the film; we’re not studying the playbook; we’re not listening to God’s voice; and we’re not using the right plays for the right situations.
““Down in the distance is what we say in football.
Because our adversary is formidable, we must be well-versed in our own side of the tale.
The adversary we face has studied our tactics from video; they are familiar with our playbook.
You will lose even though success is guaranteed if you don’t have a game plan and know who to pass the ball to when the play is called.
Everywhere books are sold, you may finally get your hands on a copy of Fighting Your Battles.
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