Our devotion this week, Getting It Right With Others, was provided by Life.Church and is available on the YouVersion Bible app.
What is conflict?
Have you ever noticed that your greatest pain and disappointments came as a result of a broken relationship?
When something isn’t right between you and someone else, we call that conflict.
You know how it goes. It’s like that time you had a horrible fight with your parents, or when your friend spread rumors about you at school. Or maybe, for you, it was when your girlfriend or boyfriend dumped you over Snapchat.
It’s not hard to figure out what conflict is because we experience it every day. Sorry to break it to you, but it’s also unavoidable. Why? Because we’re human, and humans mess up! None of us are perfect, and when imperfect people try to do things, conflict can easily come up.
But conflict isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, healthy conflict can lead to healthy relationships. But, when we don’t deal with conflict in a healthy way, it’s like a poison. It’ll slowly seep into our relationships, infecting everything and everyone we interact with. In the Bible, the writer of Hebrews knew this well. That’s why Hebrews 12:15 NLT says this: … Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
It’s important for us to work through conflict, because the quality of our lives is only as good as the quality of our relationships.
So, how do we work through conflict in a way that honors God? Over the next four days, we’ll learn why we fear conflict, how conflict affects our relationship with God, and how to deal with conflict in a healthy way. Our prayer is that you’ll stop fearing conflict and start dealing with it so that you can build better, stronger relationships.
Read Hebrews 12:15.
15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
Read Colossians 4:6.
6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Read Ecclesiastes 7:9.
9 Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
for anger resides in the lap of fools.
