January 12 – Peace
Karrie Brothers
Read: Ephesians 4:22-32
Many
practitioners of various professions develop a knack for items specifically
related to their area of expertise. Mediators develop a knack for recognizing
conflict and causes of conflict: an invaluable skill to assist those who've
asked for help. Quite often I can see the signs of conflict sprouting up before
others in the room are even aware there might be a problem. It's also not
uncommon to find seriously conflicted situations where there has been an
implicit agreement by all involved to tacitly ignore and suppress the conflict
itself.
I
assumed everyone could perceive latent conflicts and so I rarely hesitated to
point them out. Usually I had quite a few suggestions for resolution as well.
It was quite dismaying when my actions resulted in additional and increased
conflict rather than the result I wanted. Imagine my surprise when my offer of
help and utilize my expertise was met with accusations of creating conflict for
conflict‘s sake. Eventually I realized that tolerance for conflict is different
for each individual. Some people are much less sensitive to perceiving a
conflict than others. For these folks a conflict might need to get much more
pronounced before they recognize a problem. An analogy might be the differences
between two individuals' senses of smell. One might be overwhelmed by the
mildest perfume while the other doesn't even notice there is a smell to be
sensed.
People
– me included – get used to the pain from ongoing conflicts in their lives. It
can be like a sore tooth that isn‘t a problem unless you bite the wrong way.
You keep meaning to get the tooth fixed, but you don't think of it until it's a
problem, and it's not often a problem. Then, one day, you have an abscess and
need a painful root canal instead of a relatively painless and quick filling.
You might not let a tooth get that far, but have you thought about how much
pain your latent conflicts have to inflict before you're motivated to change
them?
Queries:
Do I have any latent
conflicts that I need to resolve?
How is Christ calling
me to make peace in this situation?
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