We’re all engaged in battles. Some life threatening and some only annoying – but a battle is a battle. I do have a question though – are you in the battle to win? Or are you a ‘grin and bear it’, stiff upper lip type? Or perhaps you feel that there’s no hope of ‘winning’ so you are just hoping to stay even? Your attitude toward battles is critical and determines much of whether your experiences are win, lose, or draw.
An important point is that I’m not referring to battles with other people – you really should never do that in the first place. No one ever really wins in those confrontations. The results regardless of win/lose/draw are typically always irreversible and never pleasant – even if you ‘win’. The battles I’m talking about are primarily with yourself and with ideas, methods, principles, etc. I would suggest, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, that if you aren’t in a current battle or just emerging from one or getting ready to engage the ‘enemy’ that you are living a compromised life. Yes, harsh but is it accurate?
I believe that battles are rarely a surprise so there’s typically time to plan, to prepare. There’s a scripture that talks about the fact that a good leader never goes into a battle without considering all the possible consequences and without being as thoroughly prepared as possible (Luke 14:31). You? Granted you might not be able to win every battle, but you might be able to mitigate the losses through careful planning.
I think that it is critical that you don’t go to battle: 1- without a plan and 2- without the mindset of winning. Another point is that battles don’t have to be devastating – the end result doesn’t have to be annihilation. Your attitude and subsequent behavior goes a long way in terms of influencing the end. Last, recognize the problem and don’t get caught in ‘personalities’. Granted that many battles are ostensibly with/against other people, it’s the underlying concepts that are the issue – not the people.
