Weary Of The Fight
These Are difficult days. Society is facing challenges and attacks like they have never faced before. Ideologies and cultures are being challenged and dismantled before our very eyes. The traditional family definitions of husband and wife, mother and father, son or daughter, male and female are all being dismantled and reinterpreted right in front of us. And I’m not entirely sure that people who in times past claimed to live in difficult days could even comprehend what is happening in these days.
I watch all that is going on in the news. Riots. Migration. Wars. Banks. All of politics and banking leadership has become nothing more than nameless computers to process and make decisions about the ordinary person.
Ideologies and lifestyles are being attacked from the outside and corroded from the inside. Churches. Schools. Hospitals. The innocence of children is being hijacked by adult deviants. (I use the word “deviant” within the context of someone or something that deviates from the accepted norm).
People are allowed to “self identify” as whatever they want to be nowadays. They claim it as their own inalienable right. But I don’t see too many people wanting to identify as being more intelligent, mature or rational than they have been before. In truth, self-identification should be more properly reinterpreted as self-indulgence.
At a previous college lecture we were discussing church history. It was around the time of the Asher’s Bakery incident when a bakery refused to decorate a cake to celebrate something within the LGBT community. The college lecturer said “…that in these last days we don’t throw Christians to the lions anymore. We throw them to the legal system…”.
But, I’m tired. On my next birthday I will reach retirement age. I have seen things that I never wanted to see and saw things I never thought I’d see. I have encountered people that I would never have wanted to meet and I have lost contact with people that I love and admire greatly. And I’m weary.
I don’t want to fight these battles anymore. For the battles that I fear the most are the ones that I have fought before. I shy away from them, not from fear or cowardice, but because I have felt the pain before and I don’t want to feel that pain again. I know the anguish that battles can cost. And in truth, although we have victors and vanquished, we don’t actually ever have any real winners.
It has been said that “Revenge is a dish that is best served cold”. But in truth Revenge is a dish that always tastes bitter. I was taught that if we ever want revenge on something or someone then the best revenge is to walk away and be a better person. Rise above it all. Claim the higher ground.
Jesus faced challenges throughout all his ministry. He was challenged by the Devil in the wilderness. He was challenged by the church leaders of the towns, cities and villages wherever he went. No matter where he went society and “the system” always tried to get him to conform to their way of thinking. (Sound familiar?)
But although I’m tired and weary of society, I’m contented. I have found a place in God, in church and at home that I’m happy with.
Remember Elisha and the Shunammite Woman? 2 Kings ch4 v9-10 tells us of the event…
“…And she said to her husband, "Look now, I know that this is a holy man of God who passes by us regularly. Please, let us make a small upper room on the wall; and let us put a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; so it will be, whenever he comes to us, he can turn in there…"
The passage gives us a very detailed account of the contents of this small room. It is a place for the weary person to rest, in this case Elisha.
It tells us of a bed which is a place of rest.
Book of Psalms ch4 v8 - 8 In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make medwell in safety.
It mentions a table. This is where food is served and is a place of nourishment.
Deuteronomy ch8 v3 “…that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD…” (Jesus quoted this scripture at the Devil in Matthew ch4 v4).
It mentions a chair. The chair can be seen as a place to sit and receive instruction.
John ch8 v2 - Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.
And it talks of a lampstand. This is something which provides us with illumination and enlightenment.
2 Samuel ch22 v29 "For You are my lamp, O LORD; The LORD shall enlighten my darkness.”
Surely isn’t that what an older, more weary Child of God wants sometimes? Somewhere to rest? Somewhere just to sit and breath quietly and deeply in His presence?
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."
It is well with my soul; it is well, it is well with my soul.
TheseLivelyOracles@hotmail.com
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