People & Society

My desire to be right has often trumped my desire to be kind. Looking back on seasons of my life, I can see countless moments where this behavior has damaged or even ruined my relationships with others. The majority of arguments in my marriage, family, and friendships have been because I thought it was important enough to fight for what I believed was right. In some cases, this was warranted. However, in most places where I postured for a fight, the cataclysmic end unjustified the means. This has made me reconsider why, when, where, and how I choose my battles.

Personality tests and other assessments often discuss how you respond to conflict. Some of us run headfirst into a battle and some of us hightail it out of the war zone ASAP. Some stand and watch what is going on and step in where they see they can best be utilized. Others just watch and can’t look away from the trainwreck. I’m not going to lie – I think I have done all of these things. I can be impulsive: jumping in where I have no business being. I can be a runner: “Not my monkeys not my circus!” I’ve stood on the sidelines and cheered for those in the game to “go get ’em” and I’ve taken out my phone to record crazy moments going down. We all have the capacity to do all of these things, so how do we know what is the best course of action in certain situations?

I have been teaching high school bible and leadership for the last 5 years. For this season, the leadership bible verse has been Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” I love this verse. It has kicked my butt more than a handful of times in more than a handful of ways. This year, for our t-shirts, I sent our designer a couple of ideas and at the end of the email I basically said, “I don’t know, it could even say ‘you are better than me.’” I was joking, but it stuck. I absolutely love it.

Every situation is different and every moment that a conflict arises we have to respond rather than react. We make choices that could very well determine the future of relationships. Our actions and our words have an uncanny way of leaving a mark on each other’s souls. Maya Angelou said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I agree, but I think that what you do and say definitely determines the feelings that follow. You can even do and say nothing on purpose and that nothing will also cause feelings. I have done my fair share of making people feel bad (see the last blog about owning unintentional sins), and I have done my fair share of making people feel great. But, I can guarantee that the times when I have been truly using my gift of exhortation, it was when I was practicing the art of considering others as better than myself. It follows, then, that when I made people feel bad, I wasn’t.

Here is the crux of the issue. Scripture says “do NOTHING out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (emphasis added by me). Nothing. No thing. “In HUMILITY consider others as better than yourself.” My motives matter. Don’t do something just because of the reward it is going to bring you. Don’t do something because you think or KNOW that you are right. Remember that you are not better than anyone. In fact, think of everyone as better than you. If these are the imperatives that we are living by, we can rest easy knowing that there isn’t an ulterior motive that lies just under the surface. We aren’t meant to think of our needs, desires, and wants before others. There just isn’t space in the Christian life for this. There wasn’t space in Jesus’ life for this. So why do we do it?

Full disclosure: because we want to. It feels good to be right. It feels good when we have the upper hand. It feels good to have others agree that we are right. It’s actually part of the fall. (I think I have brought it back to this moment oh so often in this blog, but it’s just true!) Eve wanted to be like God. To KNOW the things that God knows. The value that holds for us isn’t lost on me. The root of my self-righteous behavior stems from an innate sinful urge to be like God in a way that puts me on a level playing field with the creator of the universe. Spoiler alert: we will never be on that field let alone even in the same dimension that field is on! God is God and we are not. The moment I truly let this sink in, my heart and mind change toward everyone around me. Even the people who hurt me.

Being right at the cost of a relationship isn’t worth it. (Oh, you may be right and it may be good to know that you are right, but what if the cost is that the other person will never again be able to see Jesus in you?) There are times when it is good to enter into a conversation about truth, but if you do it with an air of superiority, the message of truth is the last thing that will be remembered. You do not have a corner on the market of rightness. If there is ever a moment in your life where you think you do, let it be about the gospel. Let it be in humility. Let it be to futher the cause of Christ, not your own. Let it be in the knowledge that those you are talking to are made in the image of God: just. like. you. (side note: you can’t always fix, control, or change people’s feelings toward you. You can appologise and you can do all you possibly can to be at peace with that person, but it’s not always enough to reconcile a relationship to full-power. This should make us all the more cautious about the battles we jump into.)

So, back to that first question: How do we know what is the best course of action for a battle? Well, remember first that the battle belongs to the Lord. Take into consideration that he has given you gifts that are powerful weapons for each battle. Weapons have the capacity to both defend, protect, and advance AND to seek, kill, and destroy – In the hands of the wise, the former; In the hands of the fool, the later. (Unless you are LITERALLY fighting Satan and in that case – using them for both is UBER important… but that is a discussion for another blog.) I guess the real question is: “who do I want to be?” If the answer is truly ‘like Christ’, then before I run, support, or observe a battle, I will drop to my knees and ask for wisdom, I will consider Jesus first, I will consider others next, and I will consider myself last. J.O.Y. (Jesus, Others, Yourself) – Go in JOY, my friends.