Carefrontation

When I was in college at a Christian University, someone introduced me to the idea of care-frontation.  Confrontation sounds so bad right?  It often can go bad, especially when I am confronting my kids.  I am also a soccer coach and I coach the blue team.  Often I have to yell these two words from the sidelines of a game, "SAME TEAM!"  I feel like someone should yell these two words to me when I am yelling at my kids.

Let me discuss three main aspects of how confrontation usually goes normally with my children. After something triggers my anger I decide what the main goal is, and 1. the main goal is for me to win the arguement.  After the main goal is established, I go about accomplish it by 2. the strategy of fight or flight (mostly fight), by using my voice as a weapon.  3.  I see myself as my ally, and the kids are my enemies.

Funny how this confrontation style, the one that comes naturally to me, is not very effective.  It usually creates a war in which win or lose I always feel horrid about later.  Is there any hope for confrontation, or should we not confront?

That is where Paul in Galatians 6:1 helps us in describing what I think is where people must have found the idea of carefrontation.

"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted."

Essentially Paul was crying, "SAME TEAM!"

1.  The goal is not for me to win but for the team to win.  Restore him to what? - to the team.
2.  The way toward restoration is not fight or flight, but in a spirit of gentleness.  If I come calmly, the other person will not as easily perceive me as the enemy.
3.  The enemy is myself.  There is no I in team.  Not only could I fall prey to the very sin the other person was caught in, but I could be caught in the more destructive sin of self-righteousness and pride.

How can you do this in your life?

Decide who God is leading you to confront.
1.  See the goal as a team win not an individual win (same team).
2.  Approach not as an enemy, but as a friend (same team).
3.  Watch yourself, especially lifting yourself above the other (same team).

Why I have always liked LeBron James

I started liking Lebron James when he was a sophomore in high school and he was ranked the best high school basketball player by Parade magazine that comes with Sunday papers.  I said he was going to be great - that he was great, and that he was my second favorite basketball player ever (I began liking Michael Jordan when he was injured early in his career).  During mock drafts with my brother and friends I picked BronBron over the college players.  They all laughed at me.

Then our referee friend told a story of LeBron grabbing the top of the backboard (read that again) and hanging there during pre-game at a high school basketball game.  The laughter slowed down quite a bit.  I watched him on DVDs from Kenya while we were missionaries and he was in high school.

Then everyone knew him.  It did not take long.  I rooted for the Cleveland Cavs and LeBron James.  So did a lot of people.  I had the opportunity, like many others, to watch him at a game in Indianapolis.  He has obviously been blessed with ability from God.

Then he decided to go to Miami and everyone began to hate him.  People did not hate me when I went to Kenya, or Kentucky for that matter.  Why would anyone hate someone for moving?  Isn't this, as I have heard all my life, a free country?  Or is LeBron James really the PROPERTY of any man or town or state?  When kids from Cleveland or Akron go to college somewhere else, are their pictures burned and their memories erased?

Maybe we need to rethink what it is to root for someone versus what it is to root against someone.  Why the great need to root against anyone?  Why, as a Hoosier must I root against the Boilermakers?  Why, as a Buckeye must I root against the Wolverines?  Why as someone from Ohio must I root against #6 Heat?

So as Lebron comes back home I will still root for him.  If you are a Heat fan or a Kobe fan or a whoever fan, remember - you do not have to root against LeBron James.  I won't root against your team or your player or your son or your daughter.

That is why I have always liked LeBron James.   Looking forward to a great season.

Listen to the conversation Martin wants you to have

My conscience:  “Thou hast sinned.”

Me:                        “I grant I have sinned.”

My conscience: “Then will God punish thee.”

Me:                        “Nay, he will not do so.”

My conscience: “Why, doth not the law of God say so?”

Me:                        “I have nothing to do with that law.”

My conscience: “Why so?”

Me:                        “Because I have another law which striketh this law dumb, that is to say,                                   liberty.”

My conscience: “What liberty is that?”

Me:                        “The liberty of Christ, for by Christ I am utterly freed from the law.”

A conversation Martin Luther encourages us to have with our conscience, if we take good hold of what Paul teaches in Galatians, in his commentary on Galatians.

Saying sorry another time

I have committed the same sins more than once.  This is not my goal or intent, but I often continue to fall prey to the same weaknesses.  My family knows my weakness better than anyone, as it is often them that I sin against  I feel many times that I am screwing my kids up.  I scream at them when I said that I would not scream again.  God is slow to anger and I ask him to make me slow to anger, but sometimes I get angry so quick.  So what do I do?  I say sorry another time.  If it happens the next day, I say sorry again.  I also notice that when I do not have time with God, my anger is more out of control, so I make sure I have time with God.  I ask for help.    I say sorry even if it humiliating to keep saying sorry.  It helps me point my child more to the Savior we both need so desperately.

I was wrong.  I am sorry.  Will you forgive me?

These words have been a help to my parenting almost as much as "I LOVE YOU."

Indian Statues

In the city I live in there are statues of Indians.  The state I live in is Indiana, meaning place of the Indians.  Of course, if you read your history book, even the highly euro-centric slant most history books are could not avoid that calling them Indians was thinking they were in India.  They, Chris and the lot of the white folk, were off by the Pacific Ocean and half of Asia, so in essence they were off by half the world.  Geographically speaking they would have been closer to call them Brits.
So the Native Americans used to live where I live.  I have walked around this town and all you see of Indians is statues.  It makes me think of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the Witch turns all the Narnians into stone.  That seems to be what the culture I am a part of, White culture, has done.  We have turned all the Native Americans into stone.
Our Christian Nation with Christian forefathers killed, raped, hung, starved, chased, and genocided the Native American tribes.

When will Aslan come and blow the statues and turn them back into Native Americans?

This is not Narnia.  The Native Americans are few, and we, as the Church, must ask - what to do?

I am a white person.  My culture killed and genocided as many Native Americans as they could.  They stole, killed, and destroyed, just like the Devil.  My people did horrible things, even in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For any Native Americans who may be reading this:
"I am so sorry for what we have done to you and your ancestors.  We were wrong and what we did was evil.  I ask humbly if you will forgive us.  We know that these terrible wrongs we did cannot be repaid because we can never bring back the years, the tribes, the families, the people.  We lay ourselves at your feet and weep."

Killing the Secret Life

When I was in high school I did something that I knew that Jesus did not want me to do, and I felt very guilty about it.  The Holy Spirit was very clear that I needed to talk to my brother or to the man who was discipling me, but I kept putting it off.  As I look back, I am so glad the turn of events happened as they did, for I truly feel that the Lord was teaching me how to kill the secret life.  I finally told my brother and it felt so good to confess it to someone.  Then I got to college and realized that there is more to this secret life thing than meets the eye.  Early on in my marriage I realized that marriage does not take away the struggles of lust and sexual desire.  So I started having people that I could talk to about those issues, and pray with them.  When I moved to Kenya, this was my greatest concern, and God opened a relationship with a fellow missionary that I could talk to and pray with.  Then each time we moved I would get involved in a group where we could share what was going on and pray for each other.  Today I meet with some of the guys from my church and we pray together for each other.  I believe that this is one of the ways of killing the secret life.

It is when fellowship (true fellowship) with other believers is cut off that the secret life has room to grow and develop.  I have heard many times of pastors who have had some kind of huge moral failure.  Sometimes it is theft, sometimes it is pornography, sometimes it is an affair, sometimes it is something else.  Often those pastors did not have someone who they were sharing with on a regular basis.  I know that death by sexual immorality is but a half step away, and so I must put every guard I can to make sure I do not step off the cliff.  One way for me has been to have other brothers that I regularly talk to about my most intimate life – the thoughts that go on in my head.  If you have no one like this in your life, I encourage you to   1.  Pray that God would lead a person who can keep you accountable to you.  2.  Be the type of person who can also keep someone else accountable. 

This is also a ministry of grace.  Those men throughout my life who I have confessed things to and told about my struggles – they know me intimately, and yet they continue to love me and point me to the only One who can give us the self-control we need.  Falling on our face is sometimes the only way God can lead us to talking to him.   Those men in my life have been extremely important.  “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).

"Work it out."

My kids often fight.  One is upset because another took a toy.  The other is upset because another one shoved him or her.  It goes on and on.  When I was a kid my brother and I fought a lot.  So how do we parents handle our kids fighting with one another?  What I normally do is tell them that we, their parents, will die one day, and then they will have to work it out on their own.  So what I do is tell them to sit down on the couch, or in the grass if it is outside on a walk, and hold hands.  Then I tell them they have to work it out.  Sometimes I tell them they have a time limit.
Sometimes one of the kids in particular may be telling the other how wrong they were (without admitting any wrong).  It is at this point that I often tell them that they must not do it that way.  We do not have this perfected at all.  Sometimes the "work it out" session turns into a crying session that lasts a long long time.  Sometimes it is because it is late.  Sometimes it is because feelings have been deeply hurt.  Sometimes it is both.
Working it out is something that a husband and a wife also have to do.  So a great time to learn this skill is with your brother or sister.  Working it out is at its basic form saying, "I was wrong.  I am sorry.  Will you forgive me?"

I was wrong. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?

 After my mom died over ten years ago we got a note in the mail from a lady she taught with.  This lady was not a Christian, but through my mom and others she gave herself to Jesus.  She let us know in the note one of the most impactful things my mom did.  My mom would take this lady aside and specifically ask for forgiveness something that my mom felt that she did wrong against this lady that she worked with.  This lady had never experienced that before, someone admitting their wrong and asking forgiveness.  It blew her away. 

In my life I have found that the Holy Spirit speaks to me most about asking for forgiveness.  Even today this has already happened three times.  One of them regards a blog post that I put up, and which I have since taken down.  A brother spoke to me about it, and through the Holy Spirit I realized that this post was not a good thing to post, for a myriad of reasons that the Holy Spirit made clear to me.  So if that specific post caused you pain, I was wrong.  I am sorry.  Will you forgive me?

Some people think that to say sorry to their children makes their children not respect them.  I have found the opposite to be true.  I even ask for forgiveness from my dogs, and in my world dogs are not even humans.  But in saying that we are sorry we are really trying to keep the list short, the list of things that we have done to hurt God, the God who made the heavens and the earth and our children and everyone and our dogs and everything.