Love is often seen as compassionate understanding and dealing gently with others. And certainly this can be an expression of love. But love is ultimately concerned with advancing the good. And sometimes this requires us to take up arms and fight the good fight.
To be sure, we’re often quick to get angry and many conflicts are simply the result of our frustrated desires and not getting what we want. Empathizing and seeking to understand each other minimizes many misunderstandings and allows us to restore harmony in our relationships.
But while we should be kindhearted and gentle toward our wife, for example, this is not a wise approach when confronting evil. Evil is a force to resist, not something to feel sorry for. As such, while we remember our battle is not against flesh and blood, we don’t forget that we’re still in a battle.
We must fight against distortions of truth, the corruption of goodness, and the perversion of beauty. And this means we must keep a close eye on what we allow into our homes – protecting those in our care from the subtle poison of evil’s influence. But this is also a call to be salt and light in the world – proactively advancing the good even through small acts of kindness throughout our community. Likewise, we resist evil by creating and celebrating beauty in all its different forms, for its own sake, but also to refresh the souls burden by the darkness of this world.
Whatever it looks like, we’re called to stand against evil and advance the good. While full of grace and compassion toward each other, we remain decidedly intolerant toward evil. And we allow ourselves to become the victim of evil’s deception when we try to play nice with it.
In the end, there’s a time for kindness and hugs, and a time to fight. And we must not be deceived when it comes to resisting evil. Put your armor on and fight the good fight.
