The days of an honorable scrap have gone the way of disco. The used to be common place, meet-me-after-school event, including a hand shake afterwards is as likely to happen as the Ayatollah embracing Israel.
Today if a fight breaks out you can count on a mob or a gun. Should a young man miraculously survive, he might be mandated to spend years in therapy chasing his inner child. If the mob involves girls like it so often does today, and if they put it on You Tube, the young man will certainly need therapy. The possibility of his grandchildren watching a bunch of she-males beat him up is a legacy most don’t want to pass down.
Should it happen at school, he’ll get hauled off to Git-Mo and never seen again.
In my day, a fight wasn’t that big of a deal.
Fast Times…
My mind goes back to the terrible eight-grade bully. This kid was spending his third year in the eighth grade and was the intellectual equivalent of Girls Gone Wild. He was a foot taller than all the rest of us and to me seemed undefeatable. After several months of being his piñata, my History teacher and two coaches took me aside. They closed the door and announced this was a clandestine meeting. It was years before I learned the word meant secret.
They said they were tired of seeing me get beat up by this Neanderthal. I had to fight back. My coach said I should hit him in the nose and surprise him. That day after school the bully found me and sure enough coach was watching the whole thing. To the bullies surprise I hit him right in the nose. To my surprise, up until that moment he had only been playing with me. The beating that followed is a classic in the annals of Joshua Middle School.
Coach broke it up but not before he got his terrible point across to me over and over again. I would feel his point for days to come.
Soon another clandestine meeting but this one with slaps on my back and encouragement. Why did you stop? Why didn’t you keep hitting him? That was great! Troy you had him!
I wondered if they saw the same fight I had just been in. “You told me wrong!” I said through tears. One of the coaches looked at another and then my History teacher said, “Your right. Don’t hit him in the nose, next time run up and hit him in the back of the head with a stick or a pipe or something.”
That’s when I knew these guys were crazy. I also knew there would be meeting after meeting until I had defeated this brute. Things have changed since the late seventies.
I don’t want to go into details but the bottom line is by the end of the year I was holding my own and the middle school monster was finally thrown out. I didn’t just grow in stature; I grew in confidence through every terrible battle. No longer afraid of being beat up, the bully didn’t want to mess with me. My resistance discouraged him.
Fast Forward
Eighth grade was a long time ago for me but I carry something with me today from that season of my life. It’s about being a warrior. Not that I am one. If I got in a fight today I would have to win in the first five seconds because around the 6th, I’m having an asthma attack.
I learned you don’t become a warrior through one victorious battle; sometimes you become a warrior through a long succession of defeats. It’s all about getting back up and going after victory again and again. If you do that, you discourage the enemy.
Victory grows with momentum. It’s expediential. The Bible calls that faithfulness and faithfulness is all about persistence.
Now as a Christian and 28 years later I don’t fight class bullies anymore. I’ve got a full time knock-down-drag-out going on between my own two ears. I battle darkness with light, lies with truth and overcome evil with God’s goodness. I’m not worried about going to Heaven since Christ fought that battle for me. Basically, I’m all about Heaven invading this earth. If God can do that in me then He can do that through me.
Hold Fast
You might have a history of messy ugliness, but God offers progression though every battle until that enemy is finally off of your radar. I love being a Christian. God doesn’t measure success through every immediate implication but rather through the ultimate outcome.
I lost most of my battles to the middle school monster but ultimately won the war. Sometimes your greatest show of force is to remain in the fight. As a Christian I adopt the attitude of its ok to have lost certain battles in light of the ultimate outcome.
Your persistence and faithfulness to stay in the good fight of faith discourages the discourager. You’re not messed up; you are simply on your way to being a warrior.
James 4:7
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment