CRISES, I find, are just as potent
for hearing God as ever. God warned me:
“You’re bringing Kleenex to a gun fight, so watch out for how
this is going to play out!”
The fact of the matter is we’re so
poorly equipped to fight the battles we must fight that we’re easily knocked to
the ground. We don’t anticipate the battles the enemy is bringing our way, and
we usually don’t have anywhere near the poise we need to respond in an
appropriate way. Little wonder that we’re floored most of the time. We’re
bringing Kleenex to a gun fight. Sounds like not only a waste of time, but a
perilous waste. Certain defeat is inevitable.
But there’s the reverse of this
situation — the only way to fight in a gun fight is to fight back with the
Kleenex. And this is the way life works through what life expects of our
response. Whilst the world normally fights back in a gun fight with a gun, the
world also resents it when we fight in a gun fight with a gun. Inevitably a
pistol dual wreaks casualties. Gun fights make problems worse.
Whilst the world’s default is ‘an
eye for an eye’ our common sense should say to us that fighting that way backfires
most of the time. What seems most just is actually foolish. What is really wise
is doing what nobody really thinks (or wants) to do… unless you have something
of the humility of Jesus.
Bringing Kleenex to a gun fight is
fighting by the faith that suggests love is a supreme answer — for which it is —
if not in this life, certainly in the next (and that should be good enough for
any Christian).
Kleenex suggests more than a modicum
of empathy. A gun suggests counterattack will be required.
***
Life brings war on many personal levels daily,
but the only way life works is if we fight to bring peace to every conflict.
Life only works out well when we bring a good
response to the battles that infuse themselves to our experience.
Every day has a hundred or more battles which
we don’t know about, yet life (the people who are important to us, that is) expects
us to respond graciously.
***
Another way to look at it is this:
War and peace,
The first has
casualties,
The second brings release.
Life is war yet we must bring peace. War has
casualties, and wherever there’s such destruction we can assured there’s much tension.
Peace brings release and healing and space for wholeness to return.
The wisdom of life is converting many battles
of unexpected war into peace that lasts.
***
As it turned out I was glad that
God saw fit to remind me of the terrible battle that could be waged against me the
very next morning — a potential battle of life or death. God knew that I knew
that I’d have to have a worthy Kleenex response to tidy that sort of mess up.
Only as we wait on him in the moment
do we receive grace enough to reach for the Kleenex and not grapple in our gun
cupboard.
Life brings us to war daily, yet
life also expects us to make peace with each battle.
It’s not the battles that are brought
to bear that count, but our response. Our response can amend any battle.
© 2015 Steve Wickham.
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