Wednesday’s Word

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Combat for Conflict

Ephesians 4:29: Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers.

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Trench Classes United! It’s Wednesday’s Word and I truly hope that what we talk about will penetrate down to the very core of your heart and soul, taking root in each and every chamber of your heart and blooming right when you need it the most…in times of conflict! Grab your coffee and your strand of faith and let’s go tie some knots in our faith.

Have you ever heard something from someone, maybe while sitting in church, or in some group setting and had a ah-ha moment, or even in your own study time, and then in the days immediately following, had an opportunity to put it into practice, or at least it came back to the surface of your soul and sat there waiting…and waiting? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can be really hard-headed so it takes a few of those before I realize He’s obviously trying to teach me something and so I sometimes have to drag myself into the lesson, and other times, well, He just picks me up and plops me right in it!

Last week in our Living Fearlessly class, we were talking about conflict, and many shared the reasons for their fear of facing it and dealing with it. Conflict has been given such a bad name, huh?  For many of us, conflict has received its bad name because of how we’ve seen it handled, or not, growing up; that in and of itself produced a lot of unhealthy relational habits. 

Men shared how they were afraid to approach their wives/girlfriends because of their sensitivity and not receiving what they had to say in the right way – albeit what they throw at us at times may be thrown in the wrong way it still is not permission for us to misappropriate conflict and take it to an even higher level.

How is it that you show up for conflict? Are you combative or do you run the other way?

Well, this past week I have had so much conflict development – I was going to say practice, but it has been more like real-time! These opportunities have been like fiery darts trying to hit a bulls-eye aiming straight for the heart, and yet, when I stop and reflect each one of them have been opportunities to strengthen my character! What’s crazy is each of them involved the most important areas of my life: my love life, my ministry life and my professional life! The area that I was attacked the hardest this past week was my professional life wherein my character was literally attacked in such a venomous way, I had to step way back before moving forward to respond.

Ephesians 4:29 was what I used in this combat to be non-combative! It’s like this verse is now etched in my heart in such a way that it has come to the forefront of my mind each and every time and it works like a brake, stopping me from saying anything that will tear anyone down, lifting me up and away from my flesh and need to get even, or hurt the one who has hurt me. The best way to show up for combat is to be armed with scripture!

I guess I’m sharing this all to say that scripture is so powerful to memorize to use as a tool, not a weapon, in the journey of life which is full of conflicts, aka opportunities to develop character. See, most people shy away from it because of the fear of it, the pain of it; I say that painful experiences allow the Spirit to infuse beauty into our souls!

Find a scripture that speaks to your heart about conflict, pack it away in your mind that it may be etched upon your heart and rise to the surface to combat any conflict!

Love,

Evinda