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Somewhere along the way, we are all tempted to think more of our abilities than we should. Then comes the crash and burn, the moment in time when it becomes all too clear that we are in way over our heads.

The truth is, we are always in over our heads in the abortion struggle. Why? Because at its core it is a spiritual battle, and you can’t wage this type of fight with spreadsheets, speeches and MBAs. Biblical preparation for spiritual battle is fundamental to successful leadership in the life movement.

Fortunately for us, the Bible gives us clear instructions for preparing for spiritual battle in Ephesians 6:10-18. We are to put on the full armor of God, every day and without fail, including the shield of faith to extinguish the flaming arrows that will eventually come from directions you will least expect.

Beware of cultivating an attitude that presumes that since you are standing for a moral position, your spiritual base is covered. Such a presumption will set you up for a fall while bypassing the enormous power of God in your life and leadership.

The playing field never seems to be level when it comes to abortion, whether it is in the area of funding or policy. But when it comes to the field of prayer, never forget that the abortion industry is utterly powerless.

real life application

Make it a priority in your daily routine to go through the process in your mind of putting on the full spiritual armor of God as outlined in Ephesians 6:10-18. It will quickly become the most powerful part of your day and will separate your leadership from others around you.

If you’re trying to make sense of the rapidly increasing tempo of the national 2012 election cycle, particularly in the progressive camp, here is an easy method for establishing context that I refer to as the three D’s of progressive politics: division, distraction, and discouragement.

Division is a tool of choice for progressives worldwide. It basically boils down to this: create enough dissension in any culture and eventually a sizeable percentage of the population will drift away from any form of consensus that unifies. The result is turmoil that destroys from within, creating a platform for the orchestrators of the division to call for peace and unity. That’s the insidious irony of it all.

Distraction is the use of hot button issues to keep like-minded opposition from unifying for a common purpose (let’s say, defeating the progressive agenda at the polls) by creating a never-ending stream of rabbit trails.

Discouragement is an underlying goal of the whole strategy: throw enough aggressive changes at the people and sooner or later, a lot of those same folks will throw up their hands and give up hope.

Conventional politics has always been about identifying a base, qualifying that base to vote, i.e registration, and turning that base out on Election Day. Progressive politics will indeed incorporate these same strategies, but the three D’s of division, distraction and discouragement inject a much deeper, much more sinister element than most of us would care to admit.

Can it work in America? To quite a degree it already has. But progressive politics, as indicated by the name, never rests. It’s always pushing the envelope, always breaking the establishment, always grabbing more power. How much power remains to be seen, but we’ll know that answer soon enough.

Tucked away near the middle of your Bible is the hands-down best leadership advice that you will ever read, period. How’s that for an opening statement?

It’s true. The Book of Proverbs is the culmination of God-breathed wisdom that applies to every facet of your life, including leadership principles that will keep you on the path to excellence. I am often amazed at how many leaders will attend seminars, spend big money on motivational best-sellers, or endlessly pursue college courses while never bothering to crack open the black book collecting dust on the night stand.

Sound old-fashioned? I guess you’re right. It’s so old-fashioned that it plumbs the depths of wisdom found in God before the creation of the universe. You can’t get any more old-fashioned than that. But let me ask you this – whose wisdom would you rather follow?

The Book of Proverbs carries with it another unique benefit by way of it being broken into 31 chapters. Hence, your leadership program is made quite simple – one chapter of Proverbs each day, corresponding with the day of the month. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Remember, the Book of Proverbs isn’t hocus-pocus, meaning you won’t absorb its meaning by cursory review. In fact, it’s so deep that you can spend a lifetime studying its wisdom and you’ll continuously find something new. It’s that good.

real life application

Commit to reading one chapter of the Book of Proverbs each day by reading the chapter corresponding with the day’s date. Pray that God will open your eyes and give you understanding.

Much has been written, and will continue be written, about the controversial Health and Human Services mandate that we now know will require insurance providers to provide free coverage for birth control, including those drugs known to cause early abortions. President Obama’s proposed solution, ostensibly considered a compromise of sorts, does nothing to allay the concerns of faith-based employers who understand the basic equation: whether the employer directly pays for an abortion drug, or whether the employer pays the premium to the insurance company that provides the abortion drug, the result is the same for the unborn child whose life will be destroyed.

This is the unfolding of an American eugenics program. Proponents of the mandate have shrewdly branded it a women’s health issue, and for a certain percentage of the population that explanation will carry with it political advantage. What far fewer proponents have the courage to say is that there is another percentage of the population – the “surplus population” as Dickens’ Scrooge might say – that is the targeted recipient of the entire scheme.

More simply stated, this isn’t really about women’s health at all, at least not to the upper echelon of social engineers who must be breathless at the pace in which all of this has unfolded. In reality, the HHS mandate is an extension of a progressive philosophy that only has room for the haves and the have-nots. The “haves” are elitists, not above using populist messages and rubbing elbows with the great sea of humanity as long as there is a pragmatic reason to do so, which normally involves power. The “have-nots” are necessary only to the extent that they provide a utilitarian reason for taking up space. The key to the system, in the progressive way of thinking, is to exert control, total control, over the have-nots. In this case, it is the children of the have-nots.

Eugenics dreamers at universities across America have waited for nearly a century for this day to arrive. Now that it is on our doorstep, what will now become?

Was the resignation of Komen executive Karen Handel over the Komen fiasco a hoped-for event by Komen? Maybe, maybe not. On one hand, Handel’s resignation may well feel to the Komen Foundation like the peeling of a scab after a few days of relative quietness following last Friday’s tsunami. But then again, maybe Komen needed a scapegoat, someone to toss to the wolves as if a sacrificial offering for the forgiveness of its trangressions against Planned Parenhtood.

In any event, Handel’s resignation is just one part of a silver lining for the life movement. The truth is, all of the uproar over Komen and its tiff with Planned Parenthood has simply served to cement the relationship between the two. In years past, most of the information that was out there about the relationship between Komen and Planned Parenthood failed to make the mainstream, circulating instead in conservative circles and to sympathetic audiences. Now it’s all out in the open, like a pink elephant in a white room. In Komen’s attempt to distance itself from Planned Parenthood, it ended up handcuffing itself to it instead.

Yes, Komen has left open the door to deny future grants to Planned Parenthood. Yes, there are no guarantees that it will issue any future grants. But Handel’s departure makes it clear where this game is going. Komen is now in a dysnfunctional relationship with a partner that will make life very, very disconcerting should it ever try to leave again. But at least it’s now all in the open.

Planned Parenthood’s uproar over its loss of funding has made connecting the dots between Komen and Planned Parenthood as easy as typing Komen in Google. That’s more than ten years of previous eductional efforts by the life movement could ever have accomplished. And that is what I call a silver lining.