In the summer of 2016, Karen and I were on a 70,000-acre lake in Quebec we’d never been to before. On our third or fourth day there, I went out one morning by myself. The sun had not yet broken the horizon, but the east was turning colors and steam was rising everywhere off the lake.

It was so beautiful that I fumbled around for my camera and started taking pictures. Because I wanted to reach a particular spot before the sun got up, I didn’t want to stop the boat. So, with the outboard at full throttle, I’d take a picture, look at it in the view screen, then take another one, look at it, then take another.

After about five minutes of this, I looked up from my camera and saw through the mist that I was traversing a straight that opened into a much larger arm of the lake. I suddenly realized I didn’t know where I was. The landscape was completely unfamiliar. I was lost.

When you don’t know where you are, you will not know how to get where you’re going. I immediately stopped the boat and sat still on the glassy water. I got out the rudimentary map the camp owner gave us – it was more like a restaurant placemat than a real map – and tried to figure out where I was. I needed one of those maps you see at highway rest areas, the ones with an arrow that states, “You are here.”

If there were a map with an arrow helping 21^st century Christians know where they are at, where would it point? One biblical answer is that it would point to a location behind enemy lines. “The whole world,” according to St. John, “is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). We are in this challenging place to carry out a planning and preparation operation – one could call it a propaganda campaign, in the positive sense of the term – in advance of the king’s arrival. We do this by declaring the king’s praises against the backdrop of changed lives that are full of good deeds (see 1 Peter 2:9-12).

(For a biblical illustration of how this works, read the wonderful story in Mark 5:1-20. Jesus finds a man in Gentile-controlled territory who is under the domination of dark powers and sets him free. The man pleads with Jesus to take him out of this dark place. But Jesus tells him to stay and gives him an assignment: to announce to his own people how much the Lord had done for him. He carries out this mission – this propaganda campaign – which forces people to think. The result is that when Jesus returns to the area (Mark 7:31-37), the people who previously wanted nothing to do with him now say about him, “He has done everything well.” This is 1 Peter 2:9-12 played out before our eyes.)

To say that we are behind enemy lines is not the only way to answer the question of where we are. For the Christian, the “You are here” arrow points to a fortress named, “In Christ.” That phrase is theologically rich and nuanced, but in one basic sense it is like saying we are in Company C, Third Battalion, Reconciliation Brigade. We’re not here to get rich. We’re not here get comfortable. We’re not here to get respect. We’re here to serve the king.

People who know where they are can get to where they are going. But there is more to it than knowing where we are. It also helps to know when we are. In the arc of God’s great story, when are we?

We are between D-Day and VJ Day. Gettysburg is past, but Appomattox is still in the future. In case these historical references are unclear, we live between the turning point and the victory, between the decisive battle and the usurper’s final defeat. We live between the triumph of the cross (see Colossians 2:15) and the return of the King.

This way of describing the where and when of our situation may be a little unnerving. Who wants to live in a war zone? And what if we fail at our mission? The stakes are frighteningly high. Wouldn’t it be better to forget these alarming realities and retreat into the comforting illusion in which most people live?

It would not be better. Our situation is more secure than we may think. It is true that we are in enemy territory, but we are also in God’s hands. Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28).

Yes, we are in a war zone, working behind enemy lines. But even here we are secure in the hand of God. And though we will someday leave the war zone, we will never leave the security of his hand.