Despite opposition, remaining true to the Lord

Photo by Ming Jun Tan on Unsplash

What I deal with most in the therapeutic setting is the conflict that’s endemic in life, too often manifest in relationships that are broken beyond repair. At least at that point.

As Christians, we don’t deal well with our relationships that are obliterated.

We expect that God can do anything — and He can — but we sorely underestimate the tremendous power of sin that works against us. The enemy must love it that, in our sin, we give him the power we could otherwise receive from God if only we were humble.

Christians can be nonsensical in their insisting on reconciliation
when they’re not prepared to do their own work of repentance.

Too many of us, in this modern prosperity-gospel day, overestimate the power of God’s influence, and frankly don’t even enrol in His Divine Power through our own humble obedience.

Instead, we underestimate the power of our sin, and how, through our lack of love, and the prioritisation of ‘truth’ (I would suggest that truth without love misses the mark of truth), we spoil our relationships by not first getting the log out of our own eye.

Here it is, Jesus’ own words in red Matthew 7:1-5 (NRSV):

¹ “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

So, in the inevitable situation of enduring opposition, where there are clearly people who would never be in our fan club, who don’t and won’t have our heart in view, we must guard our hearts and remain true to the Lord.

To remain true to the Lord,
we must guard our hearts and minds.

Somehow, we need to put these matters out of our mind. We must protect our hearts from thinking about things that we cannot resolve. Some people we cannot convince, and, if we were to look at our issues objectively, why would we even desire to?

Are they living our lives?

Are they truly qualified to speak?

The fact is everyone is in the same situation. Everyone is dealing with people who think we should be doing things differently, or better, or the opposite way. It seems it is another way that we human beings try to control other human beings. And us counsellors have established theories on why people endeavour to control other people: it comes from within a person who is far from their own healing.

The need of a person to control another person
comes from their own refusal to enter their own healing.

This is why it is so important to get the log out of our own eye.

To sit there and cast blame on another person is not only unfair and unjust, it is simply unchristian.

It falls far short of the glory of God, which, being Christian, in the case of opposition, is about praying for the other person and endeavouring to understand situations from their viewpoint, and not ours, whilst understanding our own sinful drives that demand our own way. It’s just such a pity I see it so rarely applied in conflict situations.

It’s good to ask:
If you try and resolve another person’s issues,
are you ignoring some of your own?
And what makes you feel so qualified to judge or help?

You can only resolve your own issues.

Despite opposition, in endeavouring to live a truly godly life, we simply must continue to recommit to remain true to the Lord each and every day, especially in the minute moments within any one day.

We can imagine that God understands us, and understands the hurt we carry with us, and would prefer that it could be reconciled.

But we have our sin, and we have the other person’s sin, and unless both of us can get the log out of our own eye, efforts for reconciliation will inevitably be futile.

In conflict, so much time could be saved and not wasted if only we understood and accepted that we can only resolve our own issues. Theirs is up to them. We have control only over our own issues.