“I’m usually a lover not a fighter but in your case, I’ll make an exception.” Little RascalsI get tired from time to time. Not a mild case of needing a nap, but as the old saying goes, weary to the bone. I wish this could be chalked up to my chronic overexercise, or the vast amounts of fun I have. The truth is, my exhaustion can be traced back to all the fights I get in. My fight club feels like it would make Chuck Palahniuk tired. Not to spoil the story, but ironically, like the book/movie, the opponent most likely to inflict serious bodily harm on me, is myself. I fight myself about everything. Money, relationships, work, parenting, addictions, priorities, time, sex, food, service, etc.... Just to be clear, I also fight with my wife about most of those too but this time around, my beef is with me. Sometimes, I find myself wishing to just stop fighting and just be who I am whatever that may be. I roll around on the ground clutching my groin and crying, (metaphorically of course) and as the immediate pain starts to fade I start to think about what it would look like to stop fighting. If I stopped fighting, I would be finally able to have peace. Right? I wouldn’t have conflict with my wife or kids, with my work, or my addiction, I would have plenty of time, and I could eat/do anything I wanted, whenever I wanted to. That sounds like bliss till I realized that the reason I wouldn’t have conflict is that all the things I fight with/about would be gone. The thing about all this conflict is, at the end of the day, I’m not fighting with these things as much as I’m fighting for these things. I’m fighting for my marriage, family and friends. I’m fighting for my job and my health. I’m fighting for my purity. I’m fighting for my faith and my response to it.
The other thing that I realize as I think about just being who I am, is that I’m not entirely sure I agree with whoever defines me as an alone, lazy, compulsive, selfish man and maybe I should rethink who I allow to set my identity. We sing this song at church and I really couldn't think of a better way to finish my pity party.
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ
No guilt in life, no fear in death
From a life’s first cry to final breath
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand
It doesn’t always feel like sins curse has lost its grip on me, but I think that grip can feel a lot like the wrong kind of freedom, and the less I fight for things, the tighter that grip gets. The truth is that no matter how tight that grip feels it’s not real. My true identity is set by Christ and as the song says, “no power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand”. I think I like the identity that Christ sets for me a lot more than the one I came up with for myself, even if it does mean that I’m going to spend a lot of time in the cage.
