8/09/2013

I talked to a friend about fighting the other day. And the thought hasn't left me since.

Here's what I think about fighting. We all need to fight some battles in our lives. Fact. And there are only so many battles one can fight. Although we might see the whole business in more heroic light when being young, there will only be a handful of real life battles we can fight. So the first important thing is to learn to pick one's battles. So that we would fight the fights that are actually significant.

But the other thing is how we see the fight. In the light of recent happenings in my life I've realised there are two opposite ways of thinking about fights. There are some people who are very eager to fight AGAINST all kinds of stuff. It somehow gives the fight a negative connotation and it often gives these people an idea that they can use every mean available to them to fight against this or that. And then sooner or later they start to see the whole world in this light, in the light of AGAINST, for if they're constantly AGAINST something, surely others are too. And from this place there's just one small step to living one's life with constant fear and hunger for conspiracy theories. We, Christians, have always been very keen on conspiracy theories - there's always someone who secretly wants to fight AGAINST us. And thus we need to fight back, we need to be AGAINST the world, AGAINST the bad guys, AGAINST this, AGAINST that...

I've made up my mind - I want to see the world in a different light. I don't want to have a big minus in front of my life battles, I want to have a positive sign in front of my life. So I've decided I'll never fight AGAINST this or that but that I'll always find a way to fight FOR something. I know that even this will lead me to fight against something, for fight FOR love is always simultaneously a fight against hatred, fight FOR justice is always a fight against injustice. But it will take away a burden from my shoulders to be full of fear and negative expectations. And the other thing - I don't ever want to fight against people. Right now I'm being fought against, it's being done in the name of God and with terrible methods. Yes, it feels terrible. And I've had to remind myself constantly of Paul's words - our fight is not against flesh and blood, no, never have we been asked to fight against other human beings. Only FOR them.

So may my fights be FOR love and justice and mercy and everything else that is precious in God's eyes.

2 comments:

  1. Last Sabbath I had "play church" with my niece and my nephews, ages 10.9,6 and almost 3. "Play church" works like this: the kids decide for a Bible story, we talk it through to remind us of what's happening in the story. Then we go and look for props, practice and in the end play the story for all the other adults. (in this case my sister, my brother-in-law, my parents and my grandmother). This time we chose the little guy´s favorite story: David and Goliath. And I got pictures in my head that will never go away. Little 3-year old running after his big brother and sister who got scared by Goliath, shouting in his very own way "Hey guys, what's wrong?". And being told, replying "I'm gonna fight that guy". But the moment that almost brought tears in my eyes was when I (king Saul) had talked to tiny David and put my armor on him (helmet = red mixing bowl, breast-shield = steal casserolle and of course the sword), and little David stood there, not being able to move, and just took everything off and told me, in his own words "I don't need all that stuff. The Lord's gonna help me!" and then ran off to kill Goliath.
    What does it take for us grown-ups to whole-heartedly believe this and live it out: Forget about the weapons, the only thing we need to know is "The Lord's gonna help me!"

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  2. Such a touching thought, Sonja! Thanks for sharing. :)

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