Recently I had a conversation about self defense and God’s position concerning it’s validity. This is a very subjective topic that has affected my life many times while being a Christian. I am a warrior plain and simple just as God made me however, over time my attitude towards self defense and all those things related has changed.
When I was a kid I learned quickly that some boys like to fight and dealing with bullies was not easy. And I dealt with it like many boys I fought back and took Karate. Later on I took mixed martial arts from a neighbor and my confidence grew which enabled me to not be so intimidated. The result of this training caused me to justify fighting back and I did. So I got into fights and a few were over my head but at least I didn’t back down, in fact I may have instigated some of them. I felt sort of empowered and because the neighbor who taught me how to fight was a Christian I felt that fighting back (not instigating) was well within my right. The stories of his encounters and including his encouragement convinced me that self defense was not only ok but also necessary at times. And I thought this way for many years.
This type of thinking doesn’t come with out consequences though. After years of this type of mindset I consciously and subconsciously sized up just about every guy that was in my range of view. I nearly constantly thought about what there outward strengths/weaknesses were and how I might exploit them if need be. This became almost second nature to me. And in my mid twenties I became friends with an ex convict who taught me even more about street fighting. By the time I was 29 I felt that I could take on just about anyone. I was deep into this mindset by then and I fed off of it. There was a night when all of this conditioning paid off too. I was about 27 and I was at a club in Houston having a good time minding my own business when two guys approached me. To make this story short I’ll just say that I head butted both of them with all of my strength. I knocked both of them clean off their feet kind of like how one might see in a movie. I almost got arrested that night but I didn’t care, they got what they deserved and I felt awesome for doing it. At that moment I felt so confident in my actions that it made turning away from this type behavior that much more difficult.
All my life as far back as I can remember I have always believed in God. I also consciously accepted Christ when I was 16 with the help of the neighbor who taught me martial arts. He and I and some other friends went to a Larry Norman concert and afterwards my neighbor asked Larry to pray over me and he did. I’ll never forget that day for as long as I live. But like many Christians I got caught up in the world and I slowly became acclimated to its distractions. But as I was approaching 30 my life started a gradual turn back to God and His guidance. This is when all of my fight/flight conditioning became a curse. As my relationship with God grew my understanding of His will greatly conflicted with my self defense mindset. All of those years of conditioning now became one of my worst enemies. Nine years later I no longer have this burden in my life, thank the Lord!
But why did I take this path; why did I believe that this type of thinking was harmful for me? Simple, because Christ says it is. All I can say is that I trust everything God says and I do mean everything. And this brings me back to the recent conversation I had. A guy I’ve been talking to is a young confessing Christian but he seems to fall into the same exact category as I once did. And he asked me to show him where in the Bible did it say that self defense is wrong so I obliged by giving him several. Then yesterday rolled around and this is a great example why I love God so much because He has an uncanny ability to confirm His will right when I need it most.
Yesterday during Church Ben continued his reading in the book of Daniel. We read chapter three and immediately I realized that this particular chapter was a perfect example supporting the practice of non violence and putting 100% faith in God. What I believe is even more significant is that the book of Daniel is part of the Old Testament which is considered by many as having a violent theme. It’s fairly obvious that in the New Testament God endorses non violence but this kind of endorsement isn’t so obvious in the Old. So here God is telling us that violence is not the way but 100% faith is! And to nip it in the bud, the violence that was confirmed was specifically commanded by God to commit for a particular situation/purpose.
I beg everyone who puts their faith in self defense to reexamine what God has to say about it. Also one might want to reexamine where violence in written about and why. All selfish forms of violence are unacceptable by God and if you know a Christian or a leader in the Church who condones any form of violence then I would be very careful to examine why. The world we live in today is full of violence, there are wars and rumors of wars all around us. It’s no wonder that many people including Christians feel that they need to protect and to preserve what they possess. However, God clearly tells us that we must be willing to give up our own life in order to be with Him. That means we not only need to turn the other cheek but we must lie down our lives. Unfortunately this is very unAmerican/unpatriotic and who wants that? God does! Patriotism is a worldly mindset and so is war and it’s ok for people to appreciate the freedoms/privileges that we enjoy but committing acts of violence in order to keep them is against God’s will.
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Daniel, fighting, God, non violence, self defense, violence
