Faithbase

Hey faith-based friends and family blessings to you. Today I want to do one more in our metric series and that's the metric of successful conflict. Now I'm sure you're like me we do not enjoy conflict right? When I was young I remember doing something that really hurt my mom's feelings I'm sure I was being insensitive to be honest but it hurt her feelings so badly that she ran off and closed the bedroom door and just sobbed and of course it made me sad to see that I'd hurt my mom's heart so much but I learned at a young age conflicts bad therefore conflict should be avoided and I brought that pattern into my marriage when actually conflict is an opportunity it's actually something we've got to work at and to develop to be emotionally and spiritually mature I was reading this week in Acts 16 and it's where Paul and Barnabas the part ways you know this is like the dynamic duo Barnabas was the only one who received Paul the other Apostles were afraid of him and they had these incredible missionary journeys together but they parted ways over John Mark Barnabas wanted John Mark to stay with them after he deserted them and Paul said no way and it makes me sad that they never reconcile their differences but I want to just stress it's so important that we engage in conflict as hard as it is because peace matters so much and health peace is so important Jesus called the Prince of Peace God speaks of his covenants in terms of peace in the Old Testament people greeted each other with Shalom which is peace it's more meaningful and rich than that in New Testament even the letters begin with the word peace and Jeremiah 8 God gets angry because there's what we call peace fakers they're saying there's peace when there was no peace peace matters peace is important but we have to work at it we have to communicate and so I would encourage you to initiate conflict humbly graciously lovingly but for the sake of greater health don't avoid it just because it's hard remember that the goal of the command is love Paul says this in first Timothy 1 the goal of pain is love which comes from a pure heart sincere faith and a clean conscience pure heart sincere faith clean conscience so I encourage you to press into conflict it's hard but know the metric of success is not whether you get the desired outcome see we can't actually control how someone responds but the metric of success is that we're faithful that we say what we need to say with kindness with humility with grace without projecting and blaming and accusing but we press into the heart and it's a success a success if we're faithful and obedient we don't always get the results we want do we the Lord's faithful so I encourage you don't shy away from conflict and know that it's a success if you're obedient to try obviously guard your hearts let's not let the enemy have any footholds or any seeds of dissension but let's not shy away from it and it's successful if you're obedient blessings to you