There is a time to fight to the death. There is also a time to leave the sword in the sheath.
This obvious lesson is one that I am learning hard right now. It may seem straightforward, but it simply never occurred to me before now that sometimes situations in life aren’t an epic struggle for right and wrong, and that what happens to me does not have to be battled over.
This may be hard to understand, and I am not sure that I even comprehend it totally, but for whatever reason, I have structured my life around fighting. Fighting God, my parents, society, life itself. I trained my mind, my actions, my values, my aspirations, dreams…everything around one simple, misleading idea: that I was at war. Who, or what, or why, or how I fought constantly changed. If it wasn’t there, I invented an enemy. I wouldn’t know how to live without fighting, honestly. I have built defenses and siege works, laid plans and stratagems, and lived on the razor’s edge of a brawl all my life.
But…I don’t have to fight. I shouldn’t, even, in most cases. I have made myself so ready for war that I haven’t even stopped to consider if there even is a fight, or, if there is (a big if) whether or not I should enter that fray. But, like David, I find that my hand is clinging to my sword. It is hard to let go, hard to stop fighting, hard to surrender my position. In fact, I feel a little like the Japanese soldier who fought WW2 long after it was over, alone, on an island, refusing to believe wild tales of war’s end.
I don’t exactly know how to even go about laying down arms. What does a life looks like without a wall to defend, or tactical decisions to be made? But I know that God is there, to help me. If anyone understands warriors, He does. And I take great comfort in that fact.
Watch the news bulletins. I think a white flag is coming.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 16:18:56 and is filed under Captain\'s Log, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
