For a guy who wants to spend most of his time as an encourager, I sure spend a lot of time in a cycle of discouragement. Day after day I see people who claim to be people of faith denying what I believe to be basic truths of Scripture. I literally find myself incredulous that there is this much disagreement over things that sure look black and white to me. This leaves me torn.
A few years ago I was going through a struggle. I had a major health scare, and it shook me to the core. I ended up seeing a therapist for a few weeks, and one of the things she really introduced to me was the fight or flight response. Namely in the midst of a struggle we feel faced with two options, to fight or to run. That probably best sums up what is on my heart. When faced with what I see as clearly false teachings, I wonder do I fight or do I flee? Oh I don’t mean run from the church, but I wonder if it’s time to run from the argument. Do I fight to rescue the false teachers and or the people in their care, or do I leave them to their own devices and focus on the people who are receptive to the faith as I understand it? This is harder than you might think. You see I really love and care about the people with whom I disagree. I’m just not sure what is lost if I spend all my time focused on controversy. If I stay in the controversy, am I just adding to the noise? At what point do I shake the dust off my feet? How many of my true mission field will be turned off by the continual debate? At what point does this all become those foolish arguments Paul warns us to have nothing to do with in 2 Timothy 2:23? Does the fight really do anything at all to advance the Gospel or am I just fanning the flames while the world burns?
At the end of the day, here’s what I know. Jesus is still this world’s only hope. I have been welcomed into many places with divergent viewpoints because I always lead with Jesus. So while I may still be torn, fight or flight? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know this: “…I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16) This is where I place my trust. This is the rock on which I stand.
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