Conflict and Failure: Friends or Foes?

Larry Crabb asks the question, "We see conflict and failure as our enemies. How might these instead be the context for discerning the real enemy from which God seeks to free us?"

I have avoided conflict my whole life. Sorry, Duck Dynasty, I coined the phrase, "Happy, happy, happy" long before anyone knew you! I just want everyone to be happy and get along. I can't stand tension. Left to myself, I will flee any conflict long before I'll seek to resolve it. The tension makes me crazy, tongue-tied and illogical. I get sucked into rabbit trails and argue insignificant details as i lose sight of the real issue at hand.

I also avoid failure. I often give up on projects for fear of failure. I want to quit my job at almost every new sermon series for fear of failure. I have started many more things than I have completed, i.e. college degree programs. I can count at least seven that I started and zero that I have completed.

How can I sue all that, plus my feelings of failing at the most important job in the world (parenting) to discern the real enemy from which God wants to free me? Fear, Selfishness, Pride, Envy, Jealousy, Laziness, Food Addiction, Religiosity, In-authenticity: These things in me must die! God will stop at nothing in His quest to make me holy. He stopped at nothing on His part in leaving Heaven and allow humanity to brutalize Him. And He will stop at nothing on my part. Even to the point of seeming distant and uncaring. God loves me too much to coddle me. He is preparing me for eternity with Him.

Lord, forgive me for seeking the lesser blessings rather than seeking holiness. Forgive me for being angry with You for not being my "Giant Santa in the Sky" by giving me everything I think I need. I submit myself to Your loving discipline as You use conflict and failure in my life to free me from the things in my life that would separate me from You. Thank You that You desire to allow me into Your presence more than You desire to bestow temporary relief from conflict and failure.

Again "Be Still"

I have been holding on to Psalm 46:10 since last September. And today, I read in Nehemiah 8:11 those same words, “Be still.” At a time when the Israelites were filled with grief and regret over their sins and failures, the Levites calmed them and spoke grace to them. At a time when their failure was weighing heavy on their hearts, dragging them down emotionally, the Levites encouraged them to celebrate and rejoice in God’s goodness.

This speaks to me because I struggle with the what-ifs. Sometimes the grief and burden of past failures weigh me down and keep me from being who God wants me to be. There is a time for mourning and grieving and confessing. But today is not that day. I have mourned. I have grieved. I have confessed. So today I pick myself up, dust myself off and I

rejoice in the goodness of God, trusting Him to redeem my past failures and, yes, even my sin. And that is my unswerving hope.

A Confession

I blew it again today. I did not represent God well. I was judgmental. I was a gossip. And I was all this as I spoke to a person who has a shakey faith already. Lord, I’m so sorry. I failed have you... again. Father, please forgive me, but more than that, please make up for my failure to the person I was speaking with today.

Shortly after I failed God so miserably, I went to my class, The Truth Project. Part of the lesson was about “knowing” God. God is so big, so deep, so wide, that it takes us a lifetime to even scratch the surface in knowing Him.

But if I really know Him, I will reflect Him. As I listened, I was reminded of my fresh failure, and I felt sick. I grieved that I not only let God down, I really let my friend down. And I revealed a lack of my knowledge of God. My failure revealed how far I am from Him. I call myself a Christian. I am even involved in ministry, and yet I completely misrepresented Him today—all because I have not invested the time and energy necessary to know God on a level that would cause me to reflect Him rather than my judgmental, gossipy self.

I feel like I broke God’s heart today and that breaks my heart. I need to be broken.

I'm hitting my knees before God.

The Next Thing

Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, pouring out His heart to the Father, wrestling with the calling that was too heavy to bear, pleading with God that it be removed. Couldn't there be another way? He knew His friends couldn't do it for Him, but He needed their support--just a little prayer support. He wasn't asking them to carry His cross--just to pray him through this period of agony... And they missed it.

Jesus had to wrestle through alone. There was no one to hold His hand. There was no one to lay a strong, supportive hand on His shoulder. He was left to grapple totally and completely alone.

So what did He do? Did He storm off and leave his lackadaisical friends to sleep? No, he simply told them to, "Rise up, let us go!" No whining, no guilt trip, let's just move on. Yes, they had blown it big time. They had missed an incredible opportunity. The only thing left to do was to move on.

How many opportunities like that have I slept through? How many have I missed because I'm more concerned about my image than anything else? How often have I failed so miserably because I was asleep at the wheel? More than I want to think about.

So, do I give up? Do I just say, "Forget it, I can't do it all, so I'll do nothing but slumber my way through life?" God forbid!

Do you feel you've failed miserably at something that is now irreparable? Something so heavy that you can't bear it? Something so crushing that you cannot rise up out of it on your own? I have.

My children, who I nursed at my breast, who I coddled and loved, who giggled and played and brought me so much joy are both now out of my reach. My son is now a man. He is a man who has followed a path that is much more tragic than my worst nightmare for him. My daughter died. I didn't protect her. I didn't keep her safe. I didn't keep either of my kids safe.

Sometimes the sense of my failure as a mother is more crushing than I can bear. I cannot rise up out of it on my own. But Oswald Chambers says that Jesus is telling me, "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it, but rise and go to the next thing. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him."

So what is the next thing? I have three: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13 MSG) Those are the words I want to live by for the rest of my life. Those are the words that can get me to rise up when I can't do it on my own. It's the hope--the unswerving hope--that gets me out of bed every single morning. I can't get through a single day without it.

That's the reason for this blog. Sometimes I have to read it myself to renew the hope that Christ has put in my heart. Without hope, life is meaningless. Won't you join my on this quest for hope? We can't go on without it!