Stay and fight

Staying is hard. The easier thing to do is to cut and run. I've never been one to run away though. It's not in me. There's something deep in my soul that screams, "Do whatever you can to make it work!" I have found this in all my relationships, in places where I've lived, and in all my jobs. 

I feel compelled to stay and fight. I have to have those hard conversations. I cannot avoid or peace out when there is conflict, because it goes so against my make-up. I wasn't like this as a non-believer though. I wanted to run from everything and conflict scared the crap out of me. But Jesus changes everything and He's changed me. And He often asks me to stay. Staying sometimes sucks. In the in-between, there is toil and turmoil. In the waiting for resolution, there is wrestling and questioning. In the staying, there's a forced trusting in the Lord that you wouldn't find if you had just left at the beginning.

I'm in a situation right now where I feel like the Lord asked me to stay. I don't think that is a "stay forever," but it is a "stay right now." I'm in the middle of conversations, looking for peace on the other side. And I'm wrestling. I'm wrestling with my feelings, with a discontentment, with a lack of peace. And because I've been in this waiting for quite a while, I'm starting to lose passion, lose direction, lose patience. I have to reach back far in my mind some days to remember why I had this issue in the first place. 

Could that be why staying produces some kind of fruit? Maybe in the staying, the sanctification process takes over. Maybe the hot anger dies down. Maybe the voice of reason is silenced and the Spirit is able to speak. Maybe more of me gets filtered out, and more of Jesus gets pushed forward. Were we always meant to stay--stay in the garden, stay with God, stay with ourselves? But now, we live in a world of cancel culture, transiency, and running from the hard and running from self. 

So, here I am, staying, obeying. I plan to stay and fight until it is clear as day that I need to leave. That clarity might come sooner or later, but it will come. God has NEVER made me stay somewhere too long when it was His will for me to move on. We need to just listen to Him and He will guide. Thank God, we have His Spirit as our Counselor, guiding us in all things. I'd be lost without Him.

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