2 Timothy 2:22-26So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.Proverbs 18:19A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.Proverbs 20:3It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.
Daily, God provides great opportunities to teach our children from His Word about how we are to treat one another. We are sinful people and we live in a world full of the consequences of sin. At times this makes getting along with one another a challenge. It also makes for a great opportunity to depend on Christ and grow in grace.
When we find joy in knowing Christ and when we trust His Word, the Bible, as our authority and standard for daily living, we desire to honor Him in every area of our lives, including our relationships with others. In parenting children from hard places I can see how their past history makes creating chaos and conflict feel soothing to them. It is what they have known in their early years and how their view of family and the world was formed.
Interestingly, I find within the American culture and even within the church an acceptance of sibling and parent/child quarreling. It is often dismissed as within the bounds of normal and sadly, accepted as the standard for how siblings treat one another and their parents. With a thankful heart I rejoice to see God's directive for how to live and respond to quarreling and conflict. We are to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.
Peace.
It sounds simplistic to say that we are to pursue peace, as if that will reduce conflict entirely. But Paul goes on in the passage above to say that in order to avoid quarreling we must choose kindness, have a teaching heart, patiently endure evil, and correct with gentleness. There is peace in choosing these things and there is an eternal purpose in choosing kindness over quarreling: so that others may come to repentance, a knowledge of truth and salvation. It is my hope that we can teach our children that there is a better way to treat others than by putting self first, that quarreling is their own prison, and that there is freedom in seeking peace in relationships.
1 comment:
I find many of the same dynamics you write of -- in one of my sweeties especially there can be almost a desire to create conflict as a way perhaps of avoiding closeness, which (understandably from the hard past she suffered) feels at times very uncomfortable and scary. I think one of the greatest lessons that parenting is teaching me is learning to be patient and gentle in the face of aggression. It is very hard, and I struggle all the time, but I am thankful for the grace I have been given to keep trying!
We think of you all the time and you are in our prayers.
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