Many families are all too familiar with the hardship and heartache that goes along with raising a strong-willed child. A number of questions flood the mind as one tries to direct said child to the Lord: Am I doing the right thing? What do I do now? How can I get through to him/her? Do they even see that what they’re doing is wrong?
The heartache and questions are much the same when trying to disciple a strong-willed ‘child’ in the church: How do we get him/her to focus on their sin and not that of others? Scripture is clear about this, why can’t they see that? How can we teach them that this is not how we treat our ‘brothers and sisters’.
The Wahgi people, like many of us, have had years of practice in doing the wrong thing and handling conflict in a wrong and unbiblical manner. The person ‘wronged’ would never be the first to initiate reconciliation. Rather, they will carry the anger and bitterness until the day they die, and in some situations may actually intentionally continue the same bad behavior just to spite the individual that has wronged them.
Such is the situation we now find ourselves in with a dear brother of ours. Recently, an individual in the church started talking to others about an area of sin in this man’s life. What was said was based on truth, but shared in a wrong and hurtful way.
Wrong as this may have been, this man refuses to see his own sin and can only see how this other individual has publically defamed his name, and has continued to publically partake in the same sin in order to make a statement. We have had opportunity to talk with him about his actions and attitude but he has purposed in his mind to remain justified in his own eyes and refuses to acknowledge any wrong on his part.
We also plan to graciously talk with the other individual about how their actions were wrong even if what was being said was based on truth and how Scripture lays out the proper method of going to a ’brother or sister’ when areas such as these arise.
Please pray for these individuals to have a sensitive heart as we try to point them to Scripture and restore them. Also pray for wisdom for us as we seek to disciple these new Wahgi believers.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.