Fighting the Wrong Battles

How easy it is to fight the wrong battles.  We expend so much energy battling others when in reality what we are battling is within ourselves.  We worry so much about what others think of us when, truth be told, they are not thinking much about us at all because they are busy worrying about their own problems.  How hard it is to live in the moment and celebrate what is. How difficult it is to keep hope alive when we have been wrecked by deep tragedy.

The real fight is the fight to stay hopeful.  On either end of life we have so little control (and also in the middle actually).  We don’t control when we are born and to whom.  We don’t control what happens to us after we die.  Most of us don’t control when we die and if we do it usually isn’t what we really want and we do it because we are hoping for something better on the other side or at least to end our current suffering.

Here’s the reality.  Lots of bad things happen on this earth.  Being a believer doesn’t mean you won’t experience tragedy.  All of the figures in the Bible had tragedy occur to a greater of lesser extent:  Ruth lost her husband, David’s son died as an infant and his best friend was killed in battle, Job lost all his children and his wealth, Saul ended his life by suicide, Abel was murdered by his brother, Paul was executed, Stephen was killed by stoning.  As Hebrews 11:3-40 points out, “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”   

Life is a mixed bag.  Horrible things happen and beautiful things happen and there is a lot of in-between stuff that nobody writes about.  I’ve always thought that anyone’s life would make a great book if you took out all the boring bits about waking up and driving to work and eating dinner and focused on the great highs and the deep lows and how a person walked though those. 

Seeing my son battle mental illness and slowly change from my golden boy to someone I hardly recognized and then ultimately dying was by far the most awful, horrible, devastating thing I and my family has ever been through.   I would never wish it on my worst enemy.  Outside of my family and a few close friends, I felt completely alone in my overwhelming grief.  But slowly, very slowly, a measure of healing has come to us. I have felt well enough to open up and share with people that I don’t know as well.  To be honest, I have been shocked to find out that there are so many other people that I never would have known are carrying around the same grief.  I don’t know why, but I assumed very few people had experienced the level of awfulness we had, when in reality the opposite is quite true.  I would say a safe estimate is that 25-50% of the people I know have been affected by suicide and mental illness in some way.  I was fighting a battle of assuming people wouldn’t understand, when in reality they were just waiting for someone to be open enough about their experience to give them permission to share their burden.  Realizing that we shared this common weight of tragedy gave me courage to keep on.

Sadly, what we tend to do instead of battling for hope and faith in our own souls  is to battle each other.  We can battle by withdrawing and closing off our hearts to others.   We can battle by blaming and bickering.  We can battle by self-protection of alarm systems and weapons, adopting the motto no one is ever going to do that to me and get away with it.  But these responses all just serve to enhance our bitterness and fear.  Romans 12: 21 offers an alternative, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  This at first glance feels counter-intuitive, weak and “pie in the sky. “ Like, no one does that.  But to be honest, what has saved me has been to choose hope over and over and over again.  I wrote this in my journal a few months ago: “My big faith battle for the rest of my life is believing that You raise the dead, that You give us a new body, that death is not the final answer.  I must believe this not looking at our frail bodies and minds but looking to You. I want to be fully assured that what you have promised to me in regards to eternal life,  You are able to perform.  Amen!”

Keep in mind that our battle is not against people but against spiritual forces of hopelessness, bitterness, and anger to name a few.  Choose to respond in the opposite spirit.  When someone gives you hate, offer them love.  When someone withholds in greed, provide generously.  When you feel hopeless, sing songs of praise.  Be thankful even in the darkest of times as a means to battle for your own soul.  Come to think of it, Jesus seems to have said the same thing.  I really do love Him.  He has been my rescue, is my source of life today, and will be there with grace for me in my future life on earth and beyond.  I don’t think I’ll ever let go of Him.