Conflict

I know it has been a while since I last wrote but to be honest I have just been thinking and reflecting a lot on conflict.  It is hard to love others especially when there is a personality conflict, but however hard it maybe you are still called to love one another.  I am not a person who likes to start a conflict and most of the time I try to avoid conflict at all cost or at least keep the peace to the best of my ability.  I am a peacekeeper and I don't like to make waves or disrupt order. 

Although, when you are in a position of leadership there comes time when you are going to make waves and conflict will arise. Being a peacekeeper is not an issue but avoiding conflict is.  You should not avoid conflict but rather embrace it and work through it, in a loving and gentle way to the best of your ability.  Jesus did not avoid conflict but rather talked about conflict and prepared his disciples to handle conflict.  Jesus knew that conflict would arise.  Take for example Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts (ch. 15) they had a disagreement, they were in conflict with one another.  However, out of that conflict both of them parted ways and were able to spread the Gospel.  Do you not think that God can use conflict for His own purposes? 

In leadership, you can never make someone do something that they do not want to do but rather you can try to work with them to the best of your ability.   People do not want you to do what you would like to have done to you, but rather what they would like to have done to them.  Not everyone thinks the same and not everyone acts the same.  Working with people takes the Fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

"Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity if the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit.." Ephesians 4:2-4a