When I was about twelve years old I got in an argument with my buddy Joey about Santa Clause. He believed in him. I didn’t. I was right and I could prove it. So I did. He didn’t change his belief. In fact, the more right I was, the more he was committed to his belief. Fortunately we remained friends and are still great friends to this day. But not all debates about beliefs have such favorable outcomes.

He did eventually come to a different belief. But is was on his terms. Not mine. He believed when he was ready to believe.

I have to be honest about the fact that I absolutely love to argue. I am good at it. I have a quick and logical mind in conversations and I have always been able to win debates. Pretty much anyone who knows me well can confirm my ability. It is a terrible skill to posses. I have made too many people feel little with my words. I have proven myself right and them wrong and I get a lot of energy from that because I am full of pride and arrogance and those emotions want to be fed.

What amazes me is that I somehow have been able to remain in good standing with so many people in spite of my tendency to bully with my self righteousness. The only answer to this perplexing contradiction is that God is able to work around my pride and have His love win. Because the other reality of my life is that I absolutely do want to love God and love people. Love is stronger than my argument.

I am only guessing here, but I imagine Jesus could be better than me at arguing and debating. I bet He could prove anything He wanted to prove. Yet, he pretty much made no effort to prove anything. His answers to debates, arguments, and logical traps was to ask questions and tell stories. That dude is my hero.

Why do I want to be right? Simple answer. Pride. In a weird twist, even this attempt to write about love being good, and and my arguments and pride being bad, I am probably just trying to win an argument, make you think I am smart, and feed my pride. Actually, I am pretty sure that is my motivation. I am wrong and I can prove it.

But you know what is really awesome? God can use my selfish motivation and turn it into something good. So, I press on because I want to.

Proving someone wrong does not change them and it certainly does not make them feel loved. And unless I am remembering incorrectly, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and love others. I cannot recall Jesus proving or telling His followers to prove anything, except maybe when he proved the religious leaders to be unloving. He called those jokers out.

They correctly interpreted the law, but were not loving. Jesus seemed to be bothered by them. He is probably bothered by me too when I am right. And if I have picked up anything from the Gospels, it would be that I should not aspire to be like those religious leaders. I’m sort of thinking that Jesus does not need my argument. He wants my heart. He wants my love. He wants me to be love.

Being right is wrong.

Love wins, arguments do not. Prove me wrong.