Choosing Your Battles

Choosing Your Battles

Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.

Heather’s daughter, Natalie, has had a tumultuous eighth-grade year. One day Natalie came home with yet another story of facing off with some of the popular boys in her classroom, a story punctuated by familiar themes of power struggles and unfairness.

“What war are you fighting?” Heather asked quietly. “What battles could you strategically let slide so that you can win the war?”

Befuddled, Natalie paused for a long moment before saying, “My war is to survive eighth grade.”

“Hmm.” Heather shook her head as she wrapped Natalie in a hug. “I believe you are made for more than merely fighting the war to survive eighth grade. What bigger war might you be fighting?”

As Natalie paused, turning contemplative, her mom asked a follow-up question: “As a girl who loves Jesus, where is he in your war?” These two questions led to a crucial conversation about handling conflict.

These questions apply as much to us as they apply to an eighth-grade girl. When I find myself in conflict, I should be pausing to consider where Jesus is in this particular battle. Am I demanding my rights, or am I defending the rights of another? Am I causing harm to the cause of Christ, or am I living out what he taught? Sometimes we must forfeit a battle so that we might win the larger war of reflecting the love of Christ. This isn’t always easy to determine, especially when our emotions are involved.

The question Heather ultimately posed to her daughter was this: “Does this battle honor God?” If not, perhaps the battle is not ours to fight. Our ultimate goal is to live like children of God in the battles we choose and to love our enemies even as we are in conflict with them.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Reexamine current and future conflicts through the lens of this question: “Does this conflict honor God?”