Day 20: Restoring Broken Fellowship
I have to wonder as I look back at relationships that have faded away or fallen apart due to conflict, and wonder how many of them might have been a result of me having an unmet need that only God could satisfy? I wonder if I have ever allowed conflict to create riffs in relationships simply because I was seeking something and was missing something in my life that a particular person likely couldn't provide me with anyway...only God could.
One of the biggest things I got from this chapter is that rebuilding my fellowship with other people isn't just about resolving past conflict (although if that happens, that's a bonus!) but is more about reconciling the relationship itself. In some cases, the original conflict may continue to exist and we have to work on agreeing to disagree, but as long as we focus on being open with each other, sharing our feelings, and are willing to sacrifice of ourselves for the relationship, then we our fulfilling our purpose to love each other and fellowship together.
I also enjoyed the gentle reminder that how we approach the person, and how we work at repairing the relationship says as much about who we are as Christians as it says about our commitment to working on overcoming our conflict. I want to be known as someone who is willing to trade in their arsenal of "relational nuclear weapons" and is willing to be honest about the need to rebuild my connection to someone.
Point to Ponder: Relationships are always worth restoring.
Verse to Remember: "Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody." Romans 12:18 (TEV)
Question to Consider: Who do I need to restore a broken relationship with today?
I think the hard part about identifying a relationship for me to restore is being honest about whether a relationship is one that actually suffers or not. Some people (me being one of them) sometimes deny or avoid the fact that a relationship may be in danger, or may have suffered. Perhaps I need to examine my current relationships and make sure there aren't any of them that could use some of the "tough medicine" from this chapter as Darryl called it after we got done reading today.
<< Home