Peace Making Monday

"I want you to take responsibility for your actions."

A certain young man I know (who shall remain nameless) has trouble with taking responsibility. When confronted with an offense, he most often has a list of excuses and others to blame for the unfortunate situation. He's making great strides and growing in this area of taking responsibility, but when face with another "unfortunate situation" recently he said my opening quote before I even had to say it myself. :) He knew what was coming!

"Getting the log out of your own eye" is the second principle of conflict resolution given by Peacemaker Ministries. In Matthew 7, Jesus gives us this command very clearly, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Tara said this, "Jesus is not forbidding confrontation. He is forbidding premature confrontation."

It's hard for all of us, isn't it? Just like that sweet young man in my life, we most often look at conflict through a tailor made set of rose colored glasses. These glasses magnify the other's offense and turn our own part into something minuscule.

It's so easy to begin to see the other person only through the lens of the offense. Even if the other person in the conflict is someone that we love, suddenly they may seem like a monster. All the loving things they've done in the past are forgotten, overshadowed by the current offense.

Our first job then in seeing the conflict in its true light is to slip off the rose colored glasses, to look honestly at the offense, and to search for our contribution so that we can own it and repent. I think that repentance is a 2 parter--first to God and then to the person with whom we're in conflict.

Powerful but difficult stuff. I'm imagining how different my next conflict will be if I was stop and intentionally 1. Glorify God 2. Get the log out of my own eye. It's going to be amazing.