Skip to main content

Never Quit Because of Someone Else

It's going to happen eventually if it hasn't happened already: someone is going to irritate you, insult you, provoke you, infuriate you, or do something else that makes you feel like you're being run out of town on a rail! Don't fall for it. It's nothing more than the old enemy tactic of trying to get us to engage in "friendly fire." What a strange term. I can't figure out what's friendly about being fired upon!

What should you do when you want to run away from your church home because of a conflict with another person?

1. Don't. You do realize that all churches have people in them, right? When you find the First Baptist Church of No People, you haven't found a church. Stay in your church home. Too many people have left a good church in search of a better one, only to end up out of church all together. Let the Lord strengthen you by staying put. "If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small." (Prov. 24:10)

2. Aim for restoration. If you know that you did something wrong, make it right. If you can't figure out what the problem is, give the person the benefit of the doubt and assume that God will work things out in due season. Stay pleasant and courteous until then, even if "then" is very far away. "He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." (Prov. 16:20)

3. Forgive. Maybe it's you that needs to do some forgiving? Forgiveness is imitating Christ, so how Christ-like do you want to be? We run into problems when we think that a person has "run out of chances" to be forgiven by us.  "Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seventy times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." (Matt. 18:21-22)

Never quit  your church because of people problems. Forgive, drop it, love and stay put. Remind yourself that fellow church members are your church family, and we don't abandon family members. Put the weapons of anger down. There is no such thing as painless friendly fire.

"If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirst, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee." (Prov. 25:21-22)

www.keeptheheart.com

Comments

  1. KEEP THE HEARTOctober 29, 2012 at 2:29 PM

    From Leigh Ann Cook White-Oct 29, 2012-2:29pm
    Agreed! I also suggest: If you've offended someone not on purpose (sometimes you can tell) go to them asap to make it right. Don't wait because many times they will make it multiple the offense in their mind--and often drag others into being mad at you. Let the Spirit lead you as to right time/place but don't put it off thinking it will blow over.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Woman Down at the Beach

"Ah yeah ah...we have a woman down on the ground here at Pensacola Beach. Not sure what happened, but she fell and then she got up and then she went down..." I could hear a man's voice trying to describe what had happened, but I couldn't speak. I was fighting my way back to consciousness. All I was trying to do was go shelling at the beach. I was on my way from my car to the restroom, which is the custom before a long walk. Restroom first. If you're over 60, you don't need a translator. A little toddler on the sidewalk was trying to sweep the sand with her hand, and her effort made me smile but also distracted me. I wasn't looking ahead,  and the moment my sandal connected with the edge of that sidewalk (right where the sand and sidewalk met), I went flying through the air and skidded across the hot, sandy cement. Breaking a fall usually includes broken bones, so I am grateful to be typing this with no broken anything that I know of at the moment
17 comments
Read more

Habits that Keep You Broke

Do you suffer from "too much month at the end of the money?" Being broke is often a result of habits that are kept like house pets. Working so hard and having no money in the wallet is self-inflicted bondage. How does this keep happening? You've done the Dave Ramsey School of Stop That. You receive notifications from your bank when your account balance is low. You know how to do basic math such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. So what keeps happening to your funds? You're subtracting faster than you're adding, multiplying debt and dividing your brain into stress-filled compartments that alternate between "Things are fine" and "This is such a mess." Is this right? No. Then what is it? Sin. Financial irresponsibility is sin. Is that the sound of your mind shutting down? Well, before you go, remember that the definition of sin is basically this: you know the right thing to do, but you're continuing to do the wr
10 comments
Read more

The Not Yets

We pray. We wait. We repeat. We pray. We wait. We repeat... What's on your waiting list of prayers? I call this my list of  Not Yets.   The waiting period of prayer is labor, and this labor builds strength. We may think that we would prefer to just have our answers without the strength-training, but God loves us too much to give us whatever we want.  It is possible for an adult to be just as spoiled as a toddler. Parents know what happens when they let toddlers have their way. It's chaos and crabbiness. We are grown up toddlers if we are only happy when things are going our way. Waiting and praying through some very uncomfortable situations is "wait training" at its best. We wait. We grow. We learn how to patiently endure, and then the next waiting period doesn't seem as hard. "Wait on the L ORD : be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the L ORD ." (Psalm 27:14) The list of Not Yets
15 comments
Read more