“You been fighting?”

Do you have any childhood memories that are based more on stories handed down in the family than experience? You know the kind of stories I’m talking about. The stories family members tell over and over at every cookout, holiday party and family reunion.

I heard one story so many times growing up that I remember it as if I remember it.

Does that make sense to anyone?

My brother, David, must have been around five or six years old, which would have made me two or three, as in the picture above. We attended Grace United Methodist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina.  The church service was over and my mother picked us up from the children’s department. David’s tie was crooked and his shirt tail was half untucked. He looked like a mess, in an Opie Taylor kind of way. When my parents inquired about his appearance, he turned to my father and exclaimed,

Daddy, I’ve been fighting at church. You been fighting at church?”

We laugh about that story now; however, I’m certain there wasn’t laughter that day. David’s backside probably hurt on the drive home.

While David actions were anything but innocent, his question was.

You been fighting at church?”

In his book, Draw the Circle, Mark Batterson says,

When we hit our knees, we pick a fight with the enemy.”

If we are picking the fight, we are on the offensive. We are going after the enemy taking back what he’s stolen, drawing the battle lines and putting him in his place.

The good news is when we fight on our knees we win, because the One who has called us to the fight does the heavy lifting for us.

Exodus 14:14 says,

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

We are called to the fight through prayer, but He throws the punches.

Now back to David’s question. Matthew 21:13 says,

It is written,” He said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.'”

If the church is called to be a house of prayer and praying is picking a fight with the enemy, then we should all be fighting at church. We should be warring on a regular basis, should we not?

So I ask you, when was the last time you picked a fight? Isn’t it about time you do?