An old friend of mine just came out and said that he had decided he is an agnostic.

Agnostic is an ugly word to a Christ follower. It doesn't mean, "I don't believe in God." That statement I can face, argue, or fight against. But the word agnostic means, "I believe you can't make me believe." I don't know how to even address that. Only God can do anything about such an idea and even He has limits. The person has to choose, God won't force.

So I'm stuck wading in a tide of sadness and even anger. Sadness because my friend has rejected what I feel is the key to life. He grew up with faith all around him, tried to grasp it, but ultimately threw it away for what he thought were intellectual reasons.

Donald Miller says that "there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care."

But I do care. I care because I see myself less as an evangelist or a preacher and more as a fighter. I fight the forces inside myself and the forces outside myself that try to bring other people away from God and into a world of darkness. Often I lose in the fight, but sometimes I win. In the conflict, the good fighters are outnumbered.

My friend imagines that he is an agnostic because his mind finds no proof that the Bible is true or that the world started in six days. I say his heart has turned away from the truth more than his mind. Science can point away from the theory of evolution (fossil record, cellular evidence, etc.) and agree with a worldwide flood; it can also point toward speciation by natural selection. But arguments abound until everything just sounds like the adults on the Peanuts cartoons: wah wah wah.

Essecially, I'm a Christian. I thought he followed the same faith but he has turned away. As the spiritual fighter, I feel like a soldier whose companion has laid down his arms and walked into the middle of the field with is hands up. My heart screams at my friend to come back, to keep up the fight, but he keeps walking. I look around as my comrads continue to cower or turn away in fear.

I look around and I am alone.

These thoughts are not knew. Writers have written of this fight since it began thousands of years ago. Strangly, knowing that my side has always been outnumbered and always will be gives me comfort and another reason to believe. The faith of others, even if they are long gone, reminds me that they fought and died in the same world. In the same war.

I can die for Him too. Even if I'm the last man on earth who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, I can still die for Him. Even though my closest friend or my family may abandon me, I can still die for my Jesus because that's what He did for me.