As long as there has been war, one side has always sought to be "the right side". It makes conflicts easier to support if you can view your own nation as righteous while the other nation is inherently evil. This is one reason why so many people enjoy the history of WWII while few study WWI with the same zeal. WWII is a fight of freedom against tyranny and liberty against totalitarianism. It's easy to pick a "good" and "bad" side. WWI is more complex. There wasn't really a good or bad side; there were only sides. Sure, one group may have instigated the fight, but neither set of nations were inherently evil. It was simply different groups of people acting in their own interests, both good and bad.
I feel like we seek to do the same with our personal wars. Any time we disagree, whether it's related to something personal like a relationship or something cultural like politics, we are obsessed with finding a "good" and "bad" side. We want to imagine that one side has the moral high ground while the other in pure evil. Reality is often more nuanced than that. Every conflict is filled with elements of truth which drive both sides. Even in instances where fault appears to be almost entirely on one side, typically no single side is without blemish.
This happened to Old-Testament Joseph, the individual known for his "coat of many colors". The way most of us tell the story, Joseph was the favorite of his father and his brothers were jealous. He had several dreams about reigning over his brothers, and the brothers saw it fit to take revenge. Eventually, Joseph was the Godly man who rose to power and did, in fact, reign over his brothers. So, Joseph is the "good guy" and the brothers were the "bad guys" right? Well, not exactly...
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 37:5-11)
Ask yourself this: did Joseph need to tell his brothers about the dream? Even if we assume Joseph was innocently naïve in telling his brothers the first dream, why did he then go on to tell them the second? The reality is that the brothers' jealousy was not entirely unprovoked; Joseph instigated a conflict. Even though we know Joseph as someone who would stand up for what he felt God called him to do, he was also the cause for much of his early trouble.
Sometimes, when we accuse "the other side" of our personal wars of wrongdoing, we do so to mask the fact that we may have committed some offense to instigate the issue.
Any time I get into a disagreement, I try to ask myself "what truth is there in the accusations this person is making about me?" Usually your "opponent" actually has some valid argument, even if you feel it isn't being treated reasonably. It is important to approach conflict and disagreements with a gracious heart, understanding that we are all flawed individuals trying to navigate difficult and often divisive circumstances.
We are not surrounded by enemies; we are surrounded by strangers who are lost and friends navigating a lost world. This is the mindset of someone renewed in Christ. The only threat we face by an enemy is one which threatens our soul (and those enemies are not beings of this world). We would do well to remember that disagreements are rarely between good and evil and, as such, we should be slow to assume that someone is inherently 'wrong' or 'bad' simply because we disagree.
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