Anybody who knows me knows I’m not a big person. I top out at 4’8″. (OK, if I’m being COMPLETELY honest, it’s more like 4’7″, according to my doctor’s height tools. But shhhh.) There are more footstools in my house than I’d like to admit. So, I know a little something about not feeling big enough.
But all of us, at one point or another, know that feeling in the emotional sense. We have those Goliaths that we fight. Life can feel like you’ve just entered a boxing match akin to this one:
A clear why matters
In your difficult moments, the only way to stay motivated is to have a why. Why get into the ring? Why take the chance of being pummeled, especially if the likelihood is high that you will be? Why heal only to be broken again and again and feel? Why throw another punch if you’re exhausted?
Some people would argue that the fight grows you. That for every round, even as you take hits, you learn. That’s true. Others would say that staying in the fight says something about you. That it proves to others you’re a warrior, that you’re not a quitter and have good character.
But sometimes, the best reason to enter a conflict is so that, later, there isn’t one.
“I fight because I do not want to fight”
That’s the why Jesus had. His goal was always peace, not just for Himself, but for all of us. He fought not to prove Himself as a warrior or gain any understanding, but so that no one ever would need to battle again.
Some great leaders have understood this sentiment. It echoed in the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he stood in front of a podium and painted a picture of a world where people were free and race was forgotten.
For millions of African Americans and others at that time, the paradoxical message could be summed up as, “I fight because I do not want to fight.”
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus knew that the hardest part of his fight was in front of Him. He admitted to His Father He wanted His cup to pass. But on His knees in front of the Captain, He knew why God wanted Him to get up. He understood that His getting up was the only way any of us would ever be able to lay down in green pastures.
Fear had Jesus on His knees. The promise of God’s peace put Him on His feet.
It might be hard, but get up anyway
I cannot tell you what your fight will look like. I cannot tell you how long it will last or when it will come. But I do know that the Captain Jesus had is the same one commanding us. We are comrades in His battle. Our why is the same. So, even if God has to pull you up by the seat of your pants, stay in the ring. The prize of peace is coming.