​There are so many people who love a good fight.

​You can pause what you’re doing right now and open your social media of choice. Scroll on reels or Tik Tok and see how long it takes to find something resembling a fight.

​A hot take against someone else. Two people arguing or debating. Maybe a fist fight. Someone weighing in on how someone else is terrible. Someone making fun of someone else.

​Did you do it? How many videos did it take to get there? How long did you accidentally scroll before returning to this article? No shame. Welcome back!

​We’re in a world that glorifies the fight.

​We love watching people be aggressive in their opinions.

​And whether we want to admit it or not, it is shaping us. It is forming us into people who are okay with division and desensitized towards fighting of all kinds.

​Now, there is surely a time and a place for healthy debates and being able to defend your faith or opinion. If the communication is healthy and there is humility involved, I am all for it. But I am less and less convinced that other forms of fighting (even if we’re just consuming them) are good for our souls.

​I think Scripture makes a case for something very different. There is a case that fruit is actually way stronger than a fight. That no one has ever been screamed at or argued to Jesus, but countless people have been loved and moved by example to Jesus. I think it’s clear that in the Kingdom of God, the quietness of a life that has been changed from the inside out is way greater than a loud fight even if you have the facts, verses, and data backing your side.

​Fruit is almost always quiet, but it is also always more impactful.

​Now, this doesn’t mean that we should be fearful, timid, and passive. In fact, just as much Scripture I could use to support this powerful fruit idea, I could also throw out to support that we need to stand for our faith. So what I’m proposing is not one or the other, or that wisdom is ignoring the side that lines up with your personality test the least, I am arguing (lol) for a perspective that holds both of these things in tension.

​A life of really strong fruit.

​A life that leads by example and has undeniably been changed and is submitted to the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit. And also… a life that is willing to speak up. A life that is praying for open doors in conversations and asking good questions.

​Fruit is stronger than the fight. ​

​I can’t write an entire article on fruit without looking at the classic Fruit of the Spirit passage in Galatians 5. Let’s check it out together…

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-25

Is any of that fruit loud? Is it aggressive? Is it divisive for the sake of being divisive? I’d argue not. It’s pretty internal, quiet, and hard to fully notice when it’s happening inside of someone. And yet… This is the strongest way to live and conduct your life in the world, because it’s the fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit, who is way more powerful than anything you could conjure up on your own anyway.

And someone who is changed from the inside out by the Spirit, will speak up for what they believe in, they will defend their faith, and they will refuse to compromise to whatever the world might be saying that day.

But the way they do it is just as important, if not more, than what they’re doing.

Fruit is greater than a fight.