What Are You Fighting For?

            I heard the commotion and I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.   By the time I got to the boys’ bedroom, Liam was chasing after Winston with a battle cry.   No matter what I said or even when I pulled them apart, Liam still went after Winston.  I had a foreboding feeling come over me. 

            I do not know what started the fight, but I do know that the passion and determination in my sons was not waning.  Finally, I separated them and they seemed to calm down.  But, the storm was still raging beneath the quiet facade.  Then next thing I hear is a “thwack” and a cry.  I knew without even looking, Liam had punched his brother.  He had taken the matter into his own hands.  Liam was then “removed from the situation” for corrective purposes.  Winston was taken to receive medical attention for his wounds.

            By the time Liam returned from his just punishment, he was “singing a different tune”.  He sat across from Winston, who was holding a cold washcloth to his bloody nose, and took him by the shoulders, earnestly imploring him to be his friend.  I did not understand all of their conversation, but I did catch the spirit behind it.  “Let’s not make mountains out of molehills.  We are on the same side, you and me.  So what do you say?  I’ll forgive you and you forgive me and we won’t ‘wrestle for real’ anymore.”  

            It was a precious scene.  Two brothers who often get into disagreements, becoming fast friends.  I knew their passionate nature toward one another came from their closeness.  When given the chance, they would fight for a resolution instead of reason toward one.

            So, I asked myself, how am I like my boys?  Do I react like they do when I am wronged?  Do I give in to my passions?  Do I go after what I want with dogged determination, with no care for whom I hurt in the process?  Do I run hard after things that I want without a pause, or a thought?  Do I let things go, only to take them up again when my emotions get the better of me?  I began to see myself in them all too much.

            Do I fight for things that I do not need or even should not have?  Do I think that obtaining what I want in people or in my circumstances will make my life more livable?  Do I want control of my life that badly?  How do I really treat a sister or a brother?

            Questions of the heart.  I am asking myself these questions.  A testing of the soul.  How do I respond when Christ takes me by the collar and sits me down and disciplines me in His love?  Do I see it as love or an inconvenience?  “Sorry you caught me sinning, Lord.”  Or am I thankful that He cares enough to come after me and take me away from what would only cause me more pain?  Sin is pleasurable for a time, but it will always lead to death.  He will not allow me to go the way of death.  He cannot, for he has altered my future.  He has taken away the final death and given me life.  And life more abundantly.

            So, the boys walked off together, after the nose had stopped bleeding, and played peacefully.  The fight was forgotten.  The passion subdued.  Love had conquered their desires.  They no longer knew what they had been fighting for. 

            That is what I want.  To no longer have the desire to fight anymore.  To calmly walk toward what God has for me, in peace.  To be changed by the reminder of who I am now.  To know that I am fighting the God of Job when I protest the circumstances in my life.  Thank God He catches me and calms me, puts His arms around me and tells me, “Let’s not fight anymore.  Let’s do things My way.”  For like Paul, I too, kick against the goads.  And that my friends, will never get you anywhere.

                                                                                             ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

  Acts 26:12-18 NIV

¹² “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. ¹³ About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. ¹⁴ We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵ “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ¹⁶ ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. ¹⁷ I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them¹⁸ to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’