Fear No Fear

“For where there is envying and strife, there is confusion and every evil work” (James 3:16, MEV). God loves us enough to share His language with us. The devil hates everything enough to share his. Strife is the language of hell. It really is. He wants it to become the language of our world, too. I was having a moment during cooking yesterday where I had nothing to do but wait. Taking a moment to scroll, I noticed that strife was being used as entertainment. More and more. Short content videos showing conflict after conflict. The intent was to make us laugh. To get us to accept this as normal. To get on the bandwagon of can you believe them? AI has really jumped on it too. Story after story where the main part of it is for one party (the ‘narrator’) to get one over on the other characters who were trying to get one over on them. The worst behaviour, really, because everyone was after everyone else. Hotel sketches, restaurant sketches, family drama, inheritance squabbles, porch bandits, Karens, cultural misunderstandings, and church stereotypes. It ran from sitcoms from the 1980s to the sitcoms of today. Films were not left out. Everywhere I went, strife – not just conflict – was being pushed as normal, almost healthy, and entertainment. God has a totally different point of view. God is about kindness. Gentleness. Not being a doormat. You can be kind and gentle and not be a victim for everyone around you. God is about patience. Understanding. Forgiveness. God has peace that flows from Him. And this is someone who is capable of being firm. Someone who is the righteous judge. God isn’t a pushover. He doesn’t want us to be, either. But there is a very big difference between conflict and strife. Just as there is a big difference between not liking what someone is doing and whining. God gives us His language: love. It defeats strife. It doesn’t engage with it. It avoids it. And it soothes things back down to where they should be. Love can handle conflict. Strife hurts everyone involved. We don’t need to be at each other’s throats. Negative emotions and negative behaviour don’t need to be entertainment. We don’t need to accept them as acceptable or normal behaviour. We need to get God’s point of view so ingrained into us that it becomes ours. Strife is not productive. It’s not healthy. It is an acid that burns everyone it touches. The Word is full of human conflict. People standing up for themselves. People striving to bless each other. People enduring persecution for Jesus’ sake. Yet none of it promotes or accepts strife as a way to handle any of it. Strife is not needed. Strife should not be wanted. Instead, we should deal with each other with love. We should engage Holy Spirit’s Fruit and seek to grow it in our own hearts. Conflict is a human condition. Strife is a poison. Love is healing. Common sense should tell us which to engage in. When that fails, we should look to the Word. It has a LOT to say about strife. None of it is good. Lean into the Word. Lean into the oxygen of Heaven. Love one another. It doesn’t make us less than. It doesn’t make us victims. It doesn’t make us vulnerable. It makes us loving, giving, and godly people. It uses His strength and His wisdom and His point of view to solve issues, bless each other, and benefit everyone. Avoid strife. Do it as a favour to yourself, not just a blessing to everyone around you.