Is This the Good Fight?
None of us need a road map to discover conflict. It breathes through society like a beast and has made its way behind steepled walls as well. There are so many issues that warrant a strong moral stance, yet the voices seem to get reduced to invulnerabilities, and suddenly the good fight of faith is no longer potent, and often reduced to the over-simplistic camps of “right” and “wrong;” a moral opinion and nothing more. So how can we conduct ourselves in a society - and church - that can’t seem to find common ground on just about anything? How can we live in a manner worthy of the call when we are all so bent on misunderstanding one another?
Second Timothy calls us to be peaceable, considerate, and to show gentleness to all people. In these ways, we can become skilled in helping others to see the truth. Being gentle and kind towards another person’s immaturities is only possible when love is the true allegiance and motivation. If we want to create the conditions for a safe conversation, we have to first love, because the devious nature of having an agenda can be sensed a mile away. It is this reason alone that makes humility another necessary posture towards peace.
The easiest way to relax into humility is to remember our own weaknesses and insufficiency. When we keep the evolution of our own growth before us, it is much easier to find compassion for another’s process as well. In this way, we find that we naturally won’t impose ourselves on others, but will nurture the way a nursing mother does with her beloved child. With humility, it is possible to speak hard truth to unwilling ears because the gentleness of the gospel words spoken are digestible and congruent with your life.
It is essential that we define what the good fight of faith really is; drawing boundaries around which conflicts matter, and which don’t. Is what you’re about to say worth potentially losing a relationship over? Not every difference of opinion is important to the health of a life, nor is every disagreement a matter of destruction.
Remembering too, that each of our beliefs are based on our interpretations that form through the filter of personal and unique experiences. We create narratives based on our feelings, our expectations and our ego. The Creator of Life is the holder of inerrant truth, and His truth - the truth - doesn’t lean on perspective and circumstance. God leads us to truth gently and lovingly. While we aren’t supposed to shrink back when confronting lies and error, neither are we to be indomitable. We cannot baptize our egotism and hatred in holy waters and expect loving disciples to emerge from the water.
Instead of looking for the error so hard in others, let’s hold the mirror before our own face and ask ourselves what is ours. No matter how compelling the truth, the Spirit is what moves us towards clarity, and everyone needs space for an atmosphere conducive to such changes. Facts alone can never compel the heart to live differently, so if we can’t grasp onto what our role is (and what our role isn’t) regarding redemption, what the good fight even is, than we are not fighting the good fight, we are just futilely fighting.