Peacemaking for Sages
The morning of November 9th, 2016, I discovered I had some new things to learn about the nature of peacemaking.
I was exchanging text messages with someone I’d considered a friend. We had stayed in touch for more than a decade since the days we served together on staff at the church my family and I had attended at the time. That November morning, I told her I was dismayed about the election results. She followed me on social media, so I know she wasn’t surprised by my reaction. I knew she held to a different political position than I did, though we’d never engaged in a comments section political debate online. Until that day, I assumed our long relationship and shared faith was a more powerful bond than political allegiance.
I was wrong. The election results emboldened her to tell me that our differing political views were more than she wished to tolerate going forward.
“Put on your big girl pants and grow up,” she texted. To drive her point home, she then unfriended me on Facebook and hasn’t spoken to me since. I tried reaching out to see if we could work through our differences, but was rebuffed. I wondered for months afterward what God-honoring peacemaking might look like in a situation like this. I still don’t have a tidy answer other than recognizing that the only thing I could do for her was to respect her wishes to end the relationship.
Most of us reading this have seen relationships fray around the polarized politics during the last decade, no matter who we voted for. And that comes on top of the host of other stressors that stretch relationships past the breaking point. Division is our culture’s default setting.
Jesus calls us to a different approach: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). This doesn’t mean we become blessed patsies, accepting the abuse of others with a saintly smile pasted onto our faces. Nor does it guarantee relational reconciliation and a happily-ever-after. What it does mean is that in relationship with our heavenly Father, we commit to the counter-cultural life of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is the shared calling of all who belong to the body of Christ.
As Sage Forum contributor Sharla Fritz reminds us this month, we learn (and learn and learn) to practice peacemaking in the learning lab of our personal relationships. A commitment to peacemaking will cost us, it will change us, and it will mature us. That is a blessing indeed.
May God give you his shalom, Sages,
Michelle Van Loon for the Sage Forum Team
Blessed Peacemakers?
by Sharla Fritz
Living as a peacemaker doesn’t come easily.
Not long ago, circumstances in my life stretched my nerves to the breaking point. Family responsibilities, financial paperwork, and relationship struggles all added up to an acute overload of stress. To top it off, on one of the saddest days of life, my husband gave me his opinion on how the situation should be handled. I couldn’t believe it. My usually sweet and caring husband now added another cut to my heart. He meant well, but what I really needed was a listening ear.
I lost all composure. I shouted. I yelled. Why couldn’t he see that at this low point in my life, I simply needed a little understanding and compassion? I was hurt. Disappointed. Angry.
For a time, it felt good to rehearse why I was right and he was wrong. I held onto my resentment and wallowed in my anger.
But I knew Jesus called us to forgive. He calls us to live as peacemakers. Not discord-makers. Not rift-makers.
How do we do this? How do we make peace where division and conflict live? Here are a few ways I see in God’s Word.
Talk to God. In Psalm 55 King David poured out his heart to the Lord about a friend who betrayed him. He wrote, “It is not an enemy who taunts me— I could bear that… Instead, it is you—my equal, my companion and close friend” (vv. 12a, 13 NLT) David wants to fly far away from the situation, yet he says, “But I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me” (v. 16 NLT). He knew God would work things out. Parking in my disappointment wasn’t helping anything, especially my state of mind. Opening up about my messy feelings with God didn’t immediately solve my problems, but it did help me get to the next step.
Look to the end result. While it felt good to temporarily rehearse my anger, I did not want the relationship with my husband to be broken over some careless words spoken in a time of distress. In Romans 12, the apostle Paul instructs, “Live in harmony with each other…Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone (vv. 16a, 18 NLT). God wants us to live in peace with each other—and, of course, I wanted that too.
Remember God’s grace. During this stressful time, I often had trouble falling asleep. One of my go-to remedies for this problem is to pray the Lord’s Prayer. As I replayed the hurtful interaction with my husband, one line of the prayer stopped the tape, “and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matthew 6:12 NLT). I could continue stewing in why he didn’t deserve forgiveness. But this prayer reminded me that God forgives me even when I don’t deserve it. Could I share God’s mercy and grace?
Ask for God’s help. Even though I had talked out my anger with God, had realized I didn’t want to live with a broken relationship, and knew that I should be able to extend the forgiveness I had received, I still struggled. So I kept praying that God would give me the strength to forgive. The ability to take the first step toward reconciliation. To love the person who I felt had let me down.
As I asked God to give me the grace to extend forgiveness, I clung to the words of Philippians 4:13, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (NLT). I couldn’t let go of my bitterness on my own, but through Christ, I forgave. And as I took the first step of apologizing for my harsh words, my husband also acknowledged that he had not handled the situation well.
God calls us to live as peacemakers. But peacemaking is unpredictable—sometimes our efforts don’t produce the desired result. And peacemaking doesn’t mean that we have to agree with everyone all the time. Or live the life of a doormat. Or compromise our biblical principles.
But we can do our part for peace. Look again at Paul’s words in Romans 12. The New International Version translates verse 18 this way, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” This acknowledges that peace isn’t always possible, but God asks us to do our part. We can talk out disagreements before they become brick walls, We can humbly admit when we have messed up. We can forgive—because we have been forgiven.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Sharla Fritz is a the author of the new book Divine Directions: How God Guides Your Path, releasing May 15th.
Additional resources on peacemaking:
What resources have you found helpful when navigating conflict in your life?
O Lord, you who love us to the very end, grant us your Spirit of power today, we pray, so that we might speak a word of blessing to those who think poorly of us, serve those who wish us the worst and bear gently with family and friends who may judge us in haste. We pray this in the name of Jesus, the One who in his flesh breaks down all walls of hostility. Amen.
From Prayers for the Pilgrimage: A Book of Collects for All of Life by W. David O. Taylor
Photos by GR Stocks, Roselyn Tirado, Arun Antony on Unsplash
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