Good Thursday morning! 2 weeks until Thanksgiving, if you need me to count it down for you. :-) Yes, the holidays are upon us. We hear about Christmas specials already, people shopping early for bargains, the so-called Black Friday sale starting, and many other indications of Christmas. What if this Christmas was going to be a special event? What if somehow we knew that all of us would be celebrating Christmas with Jesus in Heaven this year? Wow, that would change a few things about how we go about our Christmas preparation! We know from scripture that we will not know when Jesus will return, and we probably won't know the exact time of our departure from this world, if such is to take place before Jesus' return. However, we do know that what we see as Christmas and what the world sees are two quite different things.
Retail and manufacturing companies have become dependent upon Christmas as an excuse to sell more stuff. And therefore we have longer and longer advertising seasons in an attempt to increase the buying of that stuff. That 'stuff' is out in Wal-mart already in case you haven't been there since Halloween. I'm sure other places have 'decked the halls' as well. We can sit at home and rail against this to ourselves, or as customers we can let it be known that we will do any Christmas shopping after we give thanks to the Lord on November 26th. The soapbox moment for the day!
What about that old soapbox? Have you ever tried to mediate a settlement in a conflict from a distance? I'm not talking about e-mail or letter distance either, but the distance that comes from keeping your suggestions only in your own mind. We sometimes see a conflict between people or organizations and try to settle the fight inside our own heads. We make suggestions: "that person should just give in, because he's obviously wrong;" or "This person should talk to this other person and apologize." We have all the answers in the court of our own consciousness! The world will be just fine as soon as it starts doing what we think, hoozah! ...or at least it will as soon as we work up the courage to publish those suggestions.
On the other hand, we know at least a little of what we don't really know. Observing snippets of a conflict from a distance doesn't make any of us very qualified as peacemakers. We can make guesses about one side or the other from what we might think based on our own experience, but we don't know what is going on in hearts and minds. If the opposing sides are close to us, such as this fellow lives next door and that other fellow lives just down the street, we can work on getting them together for prayer and peacemaking, but often we choose sides from the safe distance of ignorance. Not stupidity ignorance, but the ignorance of how to contact each party and a certainty that they don't need our two-cents worth anyway. We do know that little something about every conflict though.
What can we possibly know about each and every conflict the world over? Easy, we gave our lives to someone who knows the thoughts of every person who ever lived. We know that He is interested in repentance and forgiveness; mercy and grace; love of God and the love of our neighbors. We know that Jesus wants us to love one another even in conflict. We might disagree with each other and we may need the help of a friend to resolve the conflict. Blessed are the peacemakers! Jesus wants to see all conflicts resolved; especially the one between us and God. In fact, Jesus himself provided the way and is the Way to restore us to God through his grace. Now that's conflict resolution!
For the conflicts that we can only observe from a distance, we can bring them to God in prayer. Remember, we may care about a conflict and have no personal means of contacting the people involved; but God does know those folks and does have a personal means of contacting them. You may wonder how God will contact someone who does not yet believe in Him since He never forces belief. All I can say in response is: At some point in our former unbelieving lives, He made Himself known to you and me, didn't He?
Live for the day and pray for each other in Christ Jesus!
Bucky
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