November 14, 2006

• First Fight

  I've been asked a few times recently if Sam & I have had our first fight yet.  It makes me laugh.  Is it actually possible for any couple to have gone from friendship to dating to marriage and not have any conflicts at all?  Any couple who claims they haven't had any riffs make me wonder if they have ever talked about anything important at all ever.  To not have conflict because we think it's better to let things slide even though they really do matter to us and to agree to disagree is, in reality, to agree to be separate.  You go your way.  I'll go my way.  And very quickly, you have two separate people living two separate lives. 

  Strangers.

  Scurrying about life together.  Which is okay if you really were strangers, but when you're not, you just don't want to be.  In marriage, we don't want to aim simply for togetherness, we aim for oneness.  And it's in the oneness that true life really happens. 

  "To agree to disagree."  This band-aid plastered over underlying differences of opinions within the church has the same insidious affects as in a marriage.  In seeking to maintain that guise of harmonious relationship within the church, we often close ourselves off from hearing someone else's thoughts because they differ so greatly from our own age-old beliefs, that we inadvertently choose to cut off our destiny of growing, developing and maturing as disciples of Jesus.  In agreeing to disagree too quickly, we cut off communication before it begins, and we miss out on sharpening one another as iron to iron.  We miss out on our needed glimpse into a new facet of truth that we had never fathomed before, and most of all, we miss out on connecting our hearts from one to another and becoming more unified in Jesus.  We choose to be separate from each other.  We become strangers together who are unable to build His Kingdom.  We lack unity.  And it's in the unity that true life really happens.

  I read a sermon recently which stated it like this, "Jesus was not afraid of conflict.  He turned conflicts into teaching opportunities.  When James and John asked for privileged status in the kingdom, the rest of the disciples became understandably angry. Jesus used the moment to talk about true leadership among God’s people. Conflict is our Christian tradition.  If it were not for conflict in the early church we would be missing much of the New Testament. Every time we read the letters of Paul, we can give thanks for conflict....If there had been no conflict among the early churches, Paul would not have needed to write the letters which help guide us in our faith today. Healthy conflict is a key ingredient in Christianity."

  So let's talk.  And in the end, we may not agree on everything, but at least let's talk it out, share our ideas, listen, consider, change and be changed so that our hearts grow closer from our communion with one another rather than growing separate because we have agreed too quickly to disagree.  

  • 1:17 pm
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