Prov 14:4 Where no oxen are, the crib is clean:
but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
Christian life would be much easier if it weren't for those other Christians!
Some background: One of the things I do is work with teachers and staff at a Christian school. Among other things, I counsel and pray for them. This school year has seen some great changes.
Last school year, there were four distinct schools. Now they are grouped into lower school and high school, with a head of schools for each group. These heads of schools are both Australian. The school and most of the staff are Indonesian, as are the students. The heads of schools have some really different ideas about what to do and how to do it. It is producing trauma.
A person came to me and started crying on my shoulder: one of her tasks had been torn away from her and given to another, without consultation or planning! This was not professional, not fair, not right! She was hurt. She was experiencing trauma.
As we talked, it emerged that in fact the task that had been taken away was a task that she really didn’t like. It also came forth that this really produced some relief for her overload. In fact, the event seemed like a perfect answer to her previous prayers! But . . . "it isn’t right!" "It isn’t fair!"
One of the secular management seminars I attended long ago presented a question that has stuck with me, and served me well in my Christian walk. Would you rather be right (with your facts and circumstances) or free?
In the case of this woman, and in fact the majority of cases in which I hear complaints about ‘fairness’ the event actually was an answer to prayer, just not exactly how they had pictured it. The traumatic event actually frees them from unwanted burdens.
James 1:2-4 says to count it joy when trials (trauma) comes upon you, for it works . . . until we become perfect, lacking nothing. If only we could hear and receive this teaching, we could look with a better (less defensive) eye to many problems and see how they are actually blessings (not even in disguise, except for our blindness) and answers to prayer! If we could remember the question Would you rather be right, or free? And choose Freedom in Christ and stop grumbling and complaining, we would escape much trauma and enter much joy (Phil 2:14 applies - do everything without complaining or arguing).
The other side of the coin is that often Christians are unthinking and unprofessional in their dealings with one another, hurting others unnecessarily just because they are inconsiderate. We should be careful not to be a stumbling block to a Christian who has not yet discovered how to be Free From Trauma in Christ!
Last school year, there were four distinct schools. Now they are grouped into lower school and high school, with a head of schools for each group. These heads of schools are both Australian. The school and most of the staff are Indonesian, as are the students. The heads of schools have some really different ideas about what to do and how to do it. It is producing trauma.
A person came to me and started crying on my shoulder: one of her tasks had been torn away from her and given to another, without consultation or planning! This was not professional, not fair, not right! She was hurt. She was experiencing trauma.
As we talked, it emerged that in fact the task that had been taken away was a task that she really didn’t like. It also came forth that this really produced some relief for her overload. In fact, the event seemed like a perfect answer to her previous prayers! But . . . "it isn’t right!" "It isn’t fair!"
One of the secular management seminars I attended long ago presented a question that has stuck with me, and served me well in my Christian walk. Would you rather be right (with your facts and circumstances) or free?
In the case of this woman, and in fact the majority of cases in which I hear complaints about ‘fairness’ the event actually was an answer to prayer, just not exactly how they had pictured it. The traumatic event actually frees them from unwanted burdens.
James 1:2-4 says to count it joy when trials (trauma) comes upon you, for it works . . . until we become perfect, lacking nothing. If only we could hear and receive this teaching, we could look with a better (less defensive) eye to many problems and see how they are actually blessings (not even in disguise, except for our blindness) and answers to prayer! If we could remember the question Would you rather be right, or free? And choose Freedom in Christ and stop grumbling and complaining, we would escape much trauma and enter much joy (Phil 2:14 applies - do everything without complaining or arguing).
The other side of the coin is that often Christians are unthinking and unprofessional in their dealings with one another, hurting others unnecessarily just because they are inconsiderate. We should be careful not to be a stumbling block to a Christian who has not yet discovered how to be Free From Trauma in Christ!
