A time to fight and a time for peace...

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days, after a great meeting with a lady who's offered to mentor me in the lead up to my going to College. I have three different mentors - one for professional purposes, one who I'm yet to meet with but who will be for personal/spiritual mentoring and now one for my journey to Officership.

Anyway, we were talking about people who are constantly looking for a fight. You know the type - they generally know very little about the subject they want to debate, but with that little bit of knowledge they want to fight everyone who disagrees with them. I guess it's true what they say "A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing". I was saying that there is someone I know who constantly takes the opposite view to me, and I'm wondering whether it's deliberate now, because whenever the person looks as though they are losing the debate - they claim spiritual warfare is happening. Man that annoys me, more than I think anything else does. I've been lamenting to my father about this, as he's a wise man, and I always like to double check my facts were straight just in case I was wrong and let the "personal" get in the way of the facts - something I have learned over time is a downfall of mine - and when that happens, I need to take my slice of humble pie and apologise. Anyway, upon checking my facts were actually straight on this issue, I continued to lament to Dad about it, and he said "Sarah, you've got to learn that you can't win with some people. They'll just never admit they are wrong."

I discussed with my mentor what she would do in this sort of situation, and her comment was "Well on issues of theology, views and opinions are always different aren't they? So that's the same in life. But when people claim spiritual attack because they know they are losing an argument, you need to call them on that, that is just not biblical, and you need to constantly go back to the bible and ask them what they think the bible says about this topic - and ask them for actual scriptural references."

This is a skill I'm going to have to learn. You see, one of my great strengths is that I stand up for what I believe in, one of my great weaknesses is that I don't back down when people (particularly Christians) make questionable remarks in arguments. There is a time for fighting and a time for peace, but when do you know for sure when is the right time for what?! I guess it comes down to grace. Always grace.

So over the next few months, I'm going to be praying for grace. Grace to know when to speak up and when to remain silent. Grace to allow people to believe what they want to believe and not force my opinions on them. Grace to keep growing with God, and not be happy with just a little knowledge lest I become like those that annoy me with their knowledge! :) Grace grace grace, always grace.

Please keep me accountable to that!! I give you my friends, the permission to do so! :)