Pick the Right Fights

Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone.

• 2 Timothy 2:23-24

You have to read over this verse a couple of times and read between the lines to get there (that’s what Midrash is, according to one of the patron saints of City Church, Wilda Gafney), but what Paul is really saying is really important:

Pick the right fights.

Can you hear it now? The stupid fights are right there waiting for you each and every day. At work, at home, on the internet. No need for those. And no need to have that attitude of feistiness, of quarrelsomeness.

But most of this chapter in 2 Timothy and most of t chapter 3 and part of chapter 4 are about fights - important fights that are worth having. That’s because there are indeed fights worth having. ‘Picking the right fights’ doesn’t mean being nagging about the right things until people get so annoyed that they blow up. It means choosing to enter into intentional conflict around values that matter with people you love and doing it at appropriate times (not when you are hungry or tired!). And kindness is always in order, as Paul points out.

Can you spend some time praying about these things, asking for the Spirit to give you restraint not to have conflict if you are one of those people who has it a lot - and for courage if you are one of those people who spends all their energy avoiding it? And pray for lots and lots of kindness.