Tip of My Iceberg

photo courtesy of Claudio Testa on Unsplash

One of my Dad’s favorite encouragements for us growing up was “Not every hill is worth dying on.” His focus on picking our battles was practical–not everything is significant enough to be bothered about. Stress is part of life; on any given day, some things potentially could annoy me, or worse.

Dad was an easy-going fellow who loved people and enjoyed trying new things. Not everything he tried turned out as he’d hoped. There was a time when he took my twin sister, Gayle, and me fishing. Dad got us up at 4:30 in the morning, still pitch dark, and we drove to an all-night diner and had pancakes. We were on the river by 6:30. Our cousin had accompanied us, and he and Dad walked down the river to try their luck. They left us near a stream pool, first baiting our hooks with worms, helping us stick the little wigglers on the hook. We’d practiced casting the night before, so we were good to go.

Things went well for a brief amount of time. Then I caught a fish.

It was amazing to have the tug on the line, and I was overjoyed when I saw an actual fish on the hook. Until I realized the hook was through its eye.

I lost it.

My compassion for the little guy overflowed into screams of panic. Gayle tried to calm me down, but I was afraid the fish would lose its eye.

Dad came rushing down the bank toward us, probably imagining one of us had gotten hooked or become injured. When I showed him the fish, he stared at me for what seemed an interminable amount of time. He calmly removed the hook from the fish and threw it into the water.

“Why don’t you two wait on the shore and let us fish a bit longer?”

He wasn’t angry. But we never went fishing with him again.

Looking back, I can see how he handled his own disappointment; fishing was a decompressor for him, and I had taken that away.

But it wasn’t something that required anger and harsh words. Dad made a decision and stuck with it.

Jesus was kind and gracious in His treatment of people, helping those who needed His help, stepping into the pain of others with grace.

The religious leaders, however, continued their attempt to trap Him in how He spoke and acted. Jesus addressed their accusations with truth, showing how they cared more for show than substance.

“The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, BUT DON’T FOLLOW THEIR EXAMPLE. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Everything they do is for show.” Matthew 23:2-5a. Jesus saw who these people really were, caring more about their image and traditions than the people they’d been tasked to lead. Jesus had compassion for the people, so he spent His time encouraging, teaching, and caring for those who were broken and needy. The religious leaders missed those needs.

They weren’t a hill worth dying on.

There will always be disappointments and discouragements in life, but we don’t have to collapse under the weight of them. We can give them to Jesus, who longs to give us His strength to deal with life.

No matter how high the hills.