Fighting in the family
Acts 7:26
“The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?'”
Moses could not understand why they would want to fight each other.. They were equally oppressed, struggling under the heavy burden of Egyptian rule with a shared hope. They were in the same family.
My brother and I loved to fight each other especially if we were bored. I wore glasses from an early age so he was always at a disadvantage because if he broke my glasses he would be in trouble with the parents, whereas I didn’t care much. I used to have a pair of glasses on my face, one ready to go to the opticians for repair and the other at the opticians ready to be picked up having been repaired. All because of fighting.
I know what you are thinking how can this godly, gentle, quiet man with many other adorable qualities have started life in such a way?! It is an enigma I agree.
I have witnessed people who are on life’s same path. They are respectable people. They are brothers, sisters, leaders in the family of God. I have been with these people. I have witnessed these same people try and destroy one another. Why?
I think the reason is that our hearts are deceitful above all things and so often we enter into fighting thinking we are right, we are incensed, we need to speak up for injustice but it is none of those things. It boils down to this one thing: we love ourselves. Some teach that we must love ourselves but It’s not a problem, we already do, that is the problem. We don’t necessarily want to hurt or injure anyone but we will not be hurt either. We will not be spoken to like that. We will defend ourselves at all costs.
Inherently we are not like sheep sent to the slaughter in silence and pain. But we should be.
Missions Paul 