Every battle is not ours to fight. Sometimes the best use of our strength is to walk away. There are times when love is aggressive, and other times when love yields.
We see this in Jesus. One moment he is disrupting the merchants in the Temple so that the blind and crippled could be healed. And in the next moment, he leaves town.
Surely there was more to say and do, but Jesus walks away and spends the night in another city. He exercises his strength by creating space.
When emotions are high we tend to become reactive, either aggressively trying to prove our point, compulsively trying to fix the situation, or passively checking out.
Jesus shows us a better way. There are times to proactively walk away from a situation.
However, this is not a passive disengagement, but rather an active and intentional choice to create space – to be still and trust God’s timing and God’s way in the situation.
There are times in marriage, for example, when we might want to resolve an issue now, but pressuring our wives to address it does little good.
Forcing an issue is generally motivated by our own pride and leads to greater bitterness and resentment by all.
Instead of following her from room to room trying to get to the bottom of the issue, the most loving thing to do might be to yield – to let the situation go, at least for now.
Create some space and breathing room.
This brings peace and opens you both to how God is working in the situation.
It takes a lot of maturity for a man to exercise his strength by yielding.
But strength is not always aggressive. Sometimes a loving strength provides unforced rhythms of grace.
Where can you allow more life and goodness emerge by yielding?
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