Thursday, October 9, 2014

Friendship, Siblings, and Peacemaking Part 2 ... and giveaway winner!

First off, I'd like to announce the winner of the iTunes $10 Gift card goes to... Sabrina! Thanks to everyone for participating! :)
On my Part 1 of friendship, siblings, and peacemaking... I went over how to intertwine peacemaking into every day sibling life as everyone gets older. Today, I wanted to focus more on what being a Peacemaker is. In Ken Sande's book, "The Peace Maker", he goes over a lot, but I wanted to focus on resolving conflict. Jesus had a lot to say about resolving conflict. Personal issues relate to what goes on inside or between persons. These matters involve our attitudes and feelings toward others that result from how we have treated on another. Personal issues are often expressed in thoughts and statements like these: "I am upset about your lying to me", "She/he is stubborn and unreasonable", "I don't like the way he/she always criticizes me", "I'm sure he/she is trying to cheat me", "You did that just to embarrass me". These kinds of issues must generally be resolved either by: overlooking an offense or through confession, loving correction, and forgiveness.

"The beginning of strife is like releasing water; therefore stop contention before a quarrel starts."
~Proverbs 17:14~

"bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do." ~Colossians 3:13~

Overlooking offenses is appropriate under two conditions.First, the offense should not have created a wall between you and the other person or caused you o feel differently toward him or her for more than a short period of time. Second, the offense should not be causing a serious harm to God's reputation, to others, or to the offender. Overlooking is not a passive process in which you simply remain silent for the moment but file away the offense for later use against someone. That is actually a form of denial that can easily lead to brooding over the offense ad building up internal bitterness and resentment that will eventually explode in anger. Instead, overlooking is an active process that is inspired by God's mercy through the gospel. To truly overlook an offense means to deliberately decide not to talk about it, dwell on it, or let it grow into pent-up bitterness. If you cannot let go of an offense in this way, if it is too serious to overlook, or if it continues as part of a pattern in the other person's life, then you will need to go and talk to the other person about it in a loving and constructive manner.
There are many conflicts that require a lot of time and effort to resolve; but in all we do, let it be done in love.

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