We all seem to be getting tired. Not the kind of tired that a good night’s sleep fixes, but a deep weariness that comes from years of constant fighting. You can hear it in conversations at the grocery store, and in the way people just shake their heads and walk away instead of engaging. We have spent so much energy pushing against each other that many folks today simply don’t have the energy left to keep pushing.
We’re tired of fighting politics, where every issue becomes a team to join and every discussion becomes an argument to win instead of a problem to solve. We are tired of fighting economics, watching prices climb while paychecks and retirement savings do not go as far as they used to. Ordinary people feel like they’re the ones paying the price for decisions made far away. It is exhausting to live in a state of constant conflict over who is right and who is wrong when most of us are just trying to make a decent living and keep our families steady day-to-day.
Maybe the most discouraging part is we are tired of battling within the Christian community itself. We should be the ones who know how to get along, but we have allowed turf battles over style, tradition, denomination, and who is doing it the right way divide us. Instead of being known for our love for one another, we get caught up in internal arguments that leave the world wondering what we actually stand for, and leave us weaker when we should be stronger together.
We are stubborn enough to hold our ground, and that stubbornness has seen this country through a lot. That grit is not a bad thing. But holding our ground against each other will not save the ground we are standing on. If we keep insisting on fighting every battle alone, we are going to lose everything that matters most: our ability to govern ourselves sensibly, to build a stable life, and to live out our faith in a way that helps our neighbors. Working together does not mean we all have to agree, it means we have to decide that the future is worth more than winning the argument today.
“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” – Matthew 12:25
Being About The Journey 