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Offense or Defense?

John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.

In my junior year of high school, my American History teacher said something that has always stuck with me: “There are two types of people in the world, those that play offense and those that play defense.” Okay, so he was also the wrestling coach, but his point was clear and it made an impression on me.

I approach life from a defensive angle. I drive defensively, make decisions defensively, and even play chess defensively; which may be why I always lose that game... I am not a risk taker. I am a protector.

Being a defensive player isn’t a bad thing. It has served me well in most areas of my life except one: my heart. When it comes to relationships, playing defense all the time doesn’t work. Over the years, I have been hurt by friends, family, boyfriends, etc. It happens to all of us. Human beings will let us down and sometimes hurt us. As a protector, my natural instinct in the face of each new hurt was to build a wall around my heart to prevent it from feeling that pain again. In time, as I laid more and more bricks on my wall, I was left with a heart that was unreachable and lonely, surrounded by a very large barricade between vulnerability and isolation. In my attempt to protect myself, I ended up with a heart that would let no one in.

Over the past year or so, God has been dealing with my heart and my relationships. Through His Mercy, I have been learning how to tear down that wall of isolation and allow myself to trust in people again. It is not easy, but this process has made my relationships better than ever before. I have stopped being so defensive with my feelings, and allowed the people I love to reach my heart. I owe a great deal to the Celebrate Recovery ministry that I am a part of at my local church. Through this ministry I have been given the tools to deal with the hurts that never healed behind that massive wall I had built.

Walls are bad… or so I thought. Then this past weekend my pastor was talking about a different kind of wall then the one I had constructed. This wall was not a wall of defense, it was a proactive wall – an offensive wall, like the one that Nehemiah built. Nehemiah rebuilt a wall for the right reasons. His goal was not to protect himself; it was to protect the thing that God was doing among His people. This wall was an act of worship and faith. Nehemiah wasn’t isolating the people with this wall, he was creating a barrier between them and their enemies.

The point of the sermon by my pastor was about choosing our friends wisely, and being careful who we let influence our lives. Nehemiah’s purpose for rebuilding the wall was to keep out those that would derail the work of God. This is different than the type of wall that I had known before. This was an act of offense – living life on purpose and with intention. The more the people of God worked with Nehemiah to rebuild the wall, the more the world came against them. That still holds true today… the more we seek after God and His will in our lives, the more opposition  we will encounter from those who are not heading in the same direction as we are. As Christians we are called to separate ourselves – to live in the world, but not of the world. As my pastor said this weekend, we must become vertical players, not horizontal players. We need to remain focused on God and take our eyes off of the world. The human heart is easily influenced, but the Holy Spirit is our barrier, our wall, against those that seek to harm the good work the Lord is doing in our lives. The difference for me is who is doing the building. Am I putting up a wall with my own power or am I allowing the Holy Spirit to build the wall in my life?

What kind of walls do you have in your life? Do you allow the Holy Spirit to play defense by offensively seeking His wisdom in your relationships? Are you a vertical player? Through Him we can live lives of intention.

Be Blessed, my friends!