[opposites]

I really like to be right. I like to do things my way. I'm pretty gosh darn self-preserving, actually.

So it's difficult for me to learn that what I have to do is the opposite of what my self-centered mind wants to do. I want to fight, argue, manipulate, kick and scream my way into being right. Making things be right, happen right, and end right.

It's good to have a reminder that "rightness" is not mine to enforce. It's not mine to create or demand.

Everything rests on our resisting the...temptation to do what seems to be immediate good things without suffering, instead of kingdom-of-God things that are slow, discrete, and always involve an element of sacrifice. ...Everything hangs on our confidence that 'It is not through the power brokers of human history that God will effect God's purposes, but through the little minority band of peoples committed to walking in the way of Jesus of Nazareth, bearing witness to the new reality, the new creation, the kingdom of God.' [This requires] great trust: that it is not our task to make things turn out right, but instead to be faithful witnesses. We have to trust that God will be God, and do what God has promised. [boyd 75]

And it's in this opposite of power, this odd and scandalous reversal of the world, that I'm finding a bit of peace.

Giving up is the only way to figure out what I really want.

And guess what! What I really want is the only thing I can really do: Love.