Thursday; July 18

Pretty early last Sunday morning I was in one of our local gas stations/convenience stores when I overheard a discussion behind me.  One person had parked his oversized pickup in a handicapped parking space and another person decided to make some comment about it in the middle of the store where everyone else could hear it.  As you might expect, the driver had a “witty” retort back to what had been said to him, which led to the other person adding his emotion-fueled reaction to what was said.  There were at least a half a dozen people in the store and, if they were like me, they felt uncomfortable about these two strangers going after each other – airing their intense personal feelings where the rest of us could hear them.  As I walked away from the store I got to thinking about what that whole exchanged accomplished and my conclusion was “nothing” (well, other than making two people irritated and several others feel awkward).  While I believe there was definitely one person who had the better of the two points of view, publicly quarreling about the issue didn’t do anyone of one us any good and got our Sunday morning off to a rocky start.
All of us have ideas and many times they are in direct conflict with others.  While it might be true that there are times when people need to be called out for their actions, there seems to be a better way to deal with it than fussing with each other in public.  When Jesus taught His disciples about how to confront someone He said, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” (Matthew 18:15).  If we need to have a discussion with someone, let’s pick the time and place where it has the best chance of correcting the issue and the least chance of negatively affecting others who aren’t directly involved.
          Think About It!

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