Carol McClain

What Unresolved Conflict Teaches Us

Carol McClain

The fun thing about novels is conflicts and problems pile up–each making life worse.

The miserable thing about life is conflicts and problems pile up–each making life worse.

 

We’ve all heard the three answers to prayer God gives: yes, wait, or no.

 

What do we do when God answers no?

We heard about Paul and his “thorn in the flesh. Something miserable assailed him. He wrote in 2 Cor. 12:7-10:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take [the thorn in the flesh] away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I recently read in Judges 3: 1-4

“These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan ² (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)”

Our unresolved problems–mental, physical, emotional–those not expelled from our lives will teach us to fight.

Anyone who has lived has faced battles. Because of sin (our own and society’s), life isn’t easy. We have to know how to fight–and fight correctly.

We know if we don’t exercise, our body deteriorates.

So too, if we don’t learn to fight, our enemies will overcome us.

Take heart-battles don’t last forever. Endure. Learn. Grow