Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.

I looked down at my phone, ironically while attending a pro-life banquet, and my heart dropped.

With a mere stroke of his pen, another judge had struck down another pro-life law.

It has become an all too familiar feeling. The cycle repeats itself over and over again: hard-fought victories, cautious celebration, and then another court ruling that leaves unborn children unprotected while those fighting for their destruction claim to be the ones suffering "irreparable harm." Another recent ruling in my state called abortion "inherently safe."

That’s part of what keeps me up at night, the language used to make abortion apologists victims instead of the unborn and their families.

The ability to turn a blind eye and even advocate for this genocide of the unborn points an accusing finger at a staggering moral bankruptcy that has become mainstream.

Heavy hearts

I sat through the rest of the banquet listening to testimony after testimony about the lives God had changed through this pregnancy resource center. Yet if I'm being honest, my heart was heavy. It was tempting to dwell in discouragement rather than posture my heart toward praise.

If you have spent any amount of time fighting for the unborn, I’m sure you've felt it too.

When you care deeply about a literal life-or-death issue, it becomes easy to look at a nation with the blood of tens of millions of unborn children on its hands and wonder what possible difference your efforts are making.

The greatest country on earth, and still we have come back around to pagan Molech worship and the child sacrifice of the Aztecs.

There are times when the spiritual degeneracy of our age feels overwhelming.

I want to take a moment to recognize my blue state friends. They’re fighting for the same things I am, but with even fewer tangible wins. Their battlefield is different, often never even having the opportunity to have victories snatched from them.

God places us all in the time and place He wants us, and I know He is always faithful to equip those He calls, but I have a deep respect for those who can keep fighting in these spiritually dark locales.

Whether in red or blue states, we as Christians can be too quick to suppress the sorrow that comes in moments like these.

Uncomfortable grief

We hear about righteous indignation from our pulpits, but not godly sorrow nearly as often. We understand holy anger toward evil and injustice. Grief, however, makes us uncomfortable. We associate sorrow with weakness, or worse, a lack of trust in God. We forget that sorrow can be the very thing that drives us toward faithfulness.

We’re mistaken if we believe that Scripture teaches a stony lack of emotion.

Psalms of lament outnumber those of praise and thanksgiving. My kids think David's vivid imagery in Psalm 6 is hilarious: "Every night I make my bed swim, I flood my couch with my tears."

But the Psalms of lament do not end in hopelessness. The famously flawed man after God's own heart continually turns back toward praise, trust, and confidence in the God who never fails His people.

Whether you are having the best day of your life or the worst, you will find a home in the Psalms.

Then there is perhaps the shortest and most profound reminder of all: "Jesus wept."

The shortest verse in Scripture is not merely easy for children to memorize. It reminds us that the sinless Son of God stood in a world ravaged by sin and death and allowed Himself to grieve.

There is an important distinction here.

Despair is sinful.

Godly sorrow is not.

There is a world of difference between abandoning ourselves to hopelessness and allowing our hearts to be grieved by the very things that grieve the heart of our Father.

In fact, Paul tells us plainly:

"For godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world brings about death." (2 Corinthians 7:10)

So if Christians are not to grieve as the world grieves, what should our response be when the tide of battle seems firmly against us?

Was "Jesus wept" the end of the story? Of course not.

Jesus called Lazarus from the grave. Likewise, Christians are not called merely to mourn. We are called to action.

Christianity is not a spectator sport.

We do not look upon the destruction of those made in the image of God, sigh, say "how heartbreaking," and then continue on with our lives unchanged.

In Ephesians 6, Paul commands believers to "take up the full armor of God... and having done everything, to stand firm."

Having done everything.

Those are not suggestions. They are marching orders.

Because beneath every legal battle over abortion lies something far deeper than politics.

This is spiritual warfare.

Our weapons

The Enemy delights in discouragement. Of course he wants Christians exhausted. Of course he wants us wondering whether the fight is worth continuing.

What he does not want us to remember is that he is already defeated.

Christ has overcome the world.

Whenever hopelessness begins whispering in my ear, I find myself returning to the same song, Goodness of God: "All my life You have been faithful. And all my life You have been so, so good."

Sometimes we simply need to remember that God has never once failed His people.

Charles Spurgeon famously wrote, "I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages."

The waves will keep coming. Court rulings and politicians will disappoint us. Culture will continue celebrating what God calls evil.

But if those waves drive us into deeper dependence upon Christ, then even they become instruments of our sanctification. So when abortion appears to triumph once again, it is okay to grieve. It is okay to lament.

We are strangers in a strange land, pilgrims on our way to the Celestial City. Sin and death feel foreign because we were created for something better.

But we cannot remain in grief. And we absolutely cannot become apathetic.

The Lamb who was slain is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

So we put on our armor and fight. Not with violence, hatred, or cruelty, but with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So weep as Christ did. Then let Him wipe your tears.

Then, onward, Christian soldiers. We have a culture of death to transform.