AN UNFAIR CONFLICT?
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The way of goodness sometimes feels like an unfair struggle.
There seem to be fewer ways for life and faith to go right than there are ways to go wrong. While we are saved by God’s grace, maintaining our relationship with Him and growing in His grace requires the good soil of hearing and understanding (see Matthew 13:23), as well as intention, focus, and effort. In contrast, the seeds that God plants in our lives can be ignored, die away with persecution, or be choked out by the busyness, distractions, and worries of our lives. Those who would wear away our faith and our intentions to do good in the world do not need better arguments or more attractive offers; all they need to do is keep us busy, cause confusion, wear us out, or make us afraid. We are likely to be alert to the direct challenges to our faith, but undermining our faith works best when we barely realize the effect, often in everyday kinds of ways. This corrosive effect explains the many times Jesus told His disciples, “Do not be afraid” and “Do not worry.” Fear and worry warp our thinking and shift our priorities, especially if they are allowed to dominate our lives. Jesus recognized the urgency of shifting our thinking back to the things that are most important in the kingdom of God.
This competition for our attention and our lives can feel like an unfair conflict. God has to be fair and truthful; those who would pull us down do not have to abide by any rules. Even in the parable of the sower, there are three soil types that go wrong, and only one way to get it right. But goodness brings larger results. Jesus said that the one who “hears the word and understands it. . . . produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23).
