Monday, August 5, 2013

Day 122: The Conflict with Conflict



Reading: Psalm 55:1-11

Confrontation can be a tricky, scary thing for some people. If anyone is like me, you run the opposite direction of it as quickly as you can. But God never intended us to run from conflict, but to handle it properly and according to His Word. In this Psalm we read how David handles conflict in the city and around him - prayerfully. We can relate to David even in today's world. There are ridiculous acts of crime and terrorism all around us. There are bombings, shootings, child molestations, kidnappings...all things full of strife and darkness. David recognizes this in his own time, and he prays for those things. They may be too big for us to handle alone, but we know that with God all things are possible. He can change a heart in the midst of conflict, and before we even think about engaging in conflict with others, we should always get God involved in prayer. Pray for the conflict around you and the conflict that directly involves you. Don't ever rush into it with haste.


Reading: John 3:1-21

Jesus gives us an example of how to handle conflict. He handles it with love. Nicodemus, a pharisee who asks Jesus about evidence of God sending Him to them, continues to challenge Jesus and His teaching. Jesus gently explains to Nicodemus the process of being born again so that one can enter the Kingdom of God. The entire bases of the gospels is love (agape). Jesus displays it well.
Approaching conflict with hate is doing nothing but feeding the fire of the argument. But approaching conflict with love is feeding the relationship. Even if you never see eye to eye on the subject, there was still a respectable way of handling the conflict at hand.
Coming at darkness with darkness doesn't create nothing more than darkness. The same goes with hate and evil. Both just make it worse. However, coming at darkness with light helps deplete the darkness. Coming at hate with love will feed the relationship, even if hate still holds on, the example was still planted. The same with good and evil.
Take Jesus' example through out His ministry and live an example of love. Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but you don't feed the hate. Jesus was light that came into darkness. Be a light to someone today.


Reading: Joshua 21:20-22:34

Here we read about an example of why we should always approach conflict wisely and never in haste. Though the 2 and a half tribes that built up an alter looked bad and like it was going against the Lord's will, their motives were just the opposite of what the other tribes thought.
The others even prepared to go to war with these tribes, but wisely, decided to confront them and get answers for their alter building. Because they did this, they saved themselves from a great mistake, learning that the alter was to ensure their children always kept their faith.
We can learn a great deal from this. Instead of going behind backs and talking about conflict, we can just approach it wisely before jumping to conclusions. This can be an issue in the church especially and it is exactly what Satan uses to divide a church and cause havoc among the body. Always get the straight answer before telling your neighbor about your own conclusions. If you don't, you could start quite a war for no reason, and this doesn't only make you look bad, but the entire body of Christ.


Conflict can be such a puzzling and tricky thing to approach. But God lays out instructions and even examples of how to approach it wisely. Never jump to conclusions about your neighbor, as this could lead to division in the church for no reason at all, but talk it out with love. Follow Jesus' example when He had to confront the Pharisees. There is a biblical way to handle conflict and it is a biblical thing. Conflict is only bad when it is handled the wrong way. Educate yourself on God's way of handling it.



(Photo Credit: http://urshat.wordpress.com/tag/c-type-conflict/)

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