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Deutsche Version | Wiki Start | Topics Collection viii
Is life a fight? ...
Thursday, Feb 18, 2016. How do you feel about life? Is it a fight? Is it a struggle? What are your experiences? Sometimes we can get the impression that our whole life seems to be a struggle! I have been sitting with about 10 refugees last night, who come from towns in Iran, Pakistan and Iraq. And I know that they have been and are in a struggle to get a perspective for their life. But it is not only them …
Life a struggle …
A conversation with a colleague in our institute who is on a temporary position, but is already quite old, has gone into a similar direction. He perceives the world as a place of injustice and struggle. Even though he lives in a save place, his struggle is on a different level, it is a struggle for a save job, a struggle for long term work perspective.
And there is a lot of fighting when you get into the management layer of our society, into the decision making layer of companies, institutes and ministries. People try to push things into their desired direction. And they do not care much about others around. It is even that some seem to feel joy when they can exercise superiority, and when they can summon someone. But things can get worse!
There is fight which touches your health. There is war, there is heavy armed conflict. People kill to get their desire realized. Violence can go into an anonymous range, where the leaders of a state do not care much any more about human fate. We see it day by day, when we see the killing, when states with a deep and long standing civilization get into a destructive mode! But these things are not new! Let us listen to the songs of David, who had a similar fight:
Ruthless men seek my life …
1 To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil1 of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, “Is not David hiding among us?” O God, save me by your name, and vindicate me by your might. 2 O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For strangers have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves. 4 Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. 5 He will return the evil to my enemies; in your faithfulness put an end to them. 6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. 7 For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. (Psalm 54)
David experienced the struggle which we all have in some part of our life. Even his live was threatened! But he put his trust in the living God. For him, God was his helper. God was the one who would save him. In the middle of a real struggle he put his trust in the Lord. This is truly remarkable, since it is a big step of faith. Can you do that: put your trust in the Lord. Wait and be faithful, truthful and full of constructive attitude? Let the Lord do the job?
There are many little things here which have a deep meaning. David is giving a freewill offering. God wants us to be with him out of free will. He does not want puppets, no robots. He wants living people. He wants us to want, to approach him with love and curiosity in our heart.
There is more here. I ask myself: did David fight or did God fight? We hear different stories from the life of David. In some occasions, he fought himself, together with God. In others, he did not fight, but left everything to God. He did not touch Saul, but God himself did the job and made David king. There is no general rule how to fight evil. Jesus tells us to fight it with goodness. He tells us to not fight evil with evil. There are deep promises by Jesus to follow the path of true love! (RWEP) ... more texts