Monday, May 10, 2010

Living at Peace?

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:18

I really like that verse. You know why? Because it makes it clear that it ISN'T always possible to live at peace with everyone! I'm not thinking of the 'living' as talking about my own immediate family (although peace there seems hard to find at times, especially with two arguing kids!). Rather, I take it more to be talking about our relationships within the Body of Christ and without.

Our family has dealt with at least a couple specfic relationships where everything has seemed fine until some sort of conflict arises. We do our best to try and resolve the situation and talk things through. We're not perfect, but I think we're trying to do things as God would have us. But, no matter how hard we try, things blow up in our faces and the relationship is strained. It's sad when it involves a fellow Christian, but Paul is clear that sometimes it happens, no matter how hard we try.

It reminds me of Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts. They were partners in ministry, serving God together and traveling all over the Roman Empire telling others about Jesus. In spite of how close they must have been, spending so much time together, they had an argument over John Mark that they couldn't resolve. They finally decided to part ways. You can read about it in Acts 15:36-41.

If you have conflict with someone, do everything you can to resolve it. But, peace takes two. Sometimes, after you do everything you can to fix the relationship, it just doesn't work. That's OK.

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