Have you ever heard the phrase, "Don't write checks with your mouth that your butt can't cash?" This humorous quip is pretty obvious in its meaning. If you're gonna pick a fight, you better know who you're picking a fight with.
Early on on king David's reign in Israel, a guy by the name of Hanun king of the Ammonites decided to pick a fight with David. Hanun took some of David's men that he had sent to pay respects for the recent death of Hanun's father and he shaved off half of their beards and cut their clothing off at the waist. This was tantamount to the ultimate humiliation in eastern culture.
Realizing that he had ticked off David, Hanun knew a fight was brewing. But apparently he didn't have enough men to fight back, so he hired 33,000 more men to go to battle with him against Israel. His efforts didn't help. Israel routed Hanun and his henchmen and these men that he had signed up to fight with him refused to ever do so again. Maybe Hanun should have known better than to take a sword into a gunfight.
Have you ever picked a spiritual battle that you knew you couldn't win? Impulse takes over and we dive headfirst into a situation fully knowing that the outcome probably won't come out in our favor. Whether it's logging onto the internet with the intent on flirting with disaster on inappropriate sites or engaging in relationships that we know will drag us down or gambling with premarital sex, we pick fights that we know we can't win. And when we try to backtrack and pull in extra resources (think of the ways we justify our behavior) the damage has already been done.
Why do we do these things? Because we don't always realistically consider the consequences even though we know they may be serious. Unless you have a death wish, it's pretty stupid to play Russian roulette. It's also unwise to write checks your butt can't cash.
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