When you WIN an argument in the family, you really don’t WIN anything.
As long as you blame others for your unhappiness, you will always be unhappy.
Don’t HAND your HAPPINESS to someone else.
James 4:1-3 (NIV)
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
- Understand the conflicts AROUND you start WITHIN you.
James 4:1-2 (NIV)
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
The COMMON CAUSE of CONFLICT is YOU.
- OWN your PART of the PROBLEM.
James 4:2b (NIV)
You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
- GIVE the GRACE you’ve been GIVEN.
There is a GAP between what’s REAL and what’s IDEAL.
What bridges the GAP is GRACE.
BEING offended is inevitable, LIVING offended is a choice.
Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)
A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
Love doesn’t seek to WIN the ARGUMENT. Love seeks to PROTECT the RELATIONSHIP.
Romans 12:18 (NIV)
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.