When you see everything as a battle there will always be a war.
I spent years watching soccer. First from the sidelines on Saturday mornings. Small kids. Big shin guards. A ball rolling wherever it pleased. Then from the stands of college games. Yet throughout every level, to hear some of the parents … and eventually fans, you’d think it was a battlefield rather than a soccer field. “Destroy them!” “Take her out!” My heart sank every time. Words matter. This language of battle isn’t just on the sidelines of competitive athletics. It is everywhere. So familiar we no longer hear it. We attack the day. Crush our goals. Plan in war rooms to take out our competition. We draw battle lines with our neighbors, and even our churches speak of warriors. Every victory makes a loser. And every loser becomes the next battle. So the war never ends. It just moves.
It moves inside us, too. We fight our fears. Battle our weight. Beat ourselves up. Without noticing, one part of us is at war with another. Fragmented. Even our tenderest moments get drafted. We say someone “lost her battle with cancer,” as if a life ending were a defeat. Here’s the trap. We can’t fight our way out of a battle mindset. The moment we declare war on war, a new one begins. Over all those years, I never confronted anyone, even when in the moment it might have felt justified. I simply moved a little further down the sideline. And it made the game far more enjoyable regardless of the outcome. When we see everything as a battle, we will never see integrity — waiting even on the battlefield, gently calling us home … to the place that was whole before anyone chose a side.
For further reflection
What word of battle have I been using … that might be quietly keeping a war alive in me?