I wonder...

How much time have you wasted, how many opportunities have you missed and how much further could you have gone IF...if you figured out how to get along with your fellow workers, if you spent as much energy on making things right when there’s a problem as you do worrying or “sharing” it? I wonder. If you determined you could work with others instead of against them I wonder how much more your ministry would be?

I sent a message out a good while back about a friend, it went like this:

“I can't say he is looking but I think I could say he would listen to someone making an offer.  TOTALLY off the record I think ... AND he got at odds with someone there early on. The work sounds like it is going well but I think it is minimized by whatever the dispute is.”  

That email has haunted me a tad. It reminded me of a work I was involved in that I loved and poured my heart into but that was minimized because I spend time and energy on a personality conflict rather than loving that person to growth, working with them to work out the problems between us and gossiping which led to worse feelings (not to mention it was a sin) rather than helping to grow the body of Christ in love.

I also remember another working relationship that was taxing to me but that someone shook me into reality by asking me when I was going to do something to make it right. They turned a potential albatross into a blessing that has led to one of my most fruitful relationships with a fellow worker in the Kingdom.

I wonder how many great works have been minimized, how many souls have not been saved, how many people not strengthened who eventually were felled by that awful lion because our egos were to big or we just didn’t make the effort, the hard effort, the striving to keep the unity that the Spirit first sent in the bond of peace? How many times have I seen good works go bad over - nothing, over ego, over silliness - our enemy rejoices at such?

I know, they disappointed you, did wrong, took a stand you wish they hadn’t or didn’t take one you wish they had, said something that hurt you, turned out not to be the best you could have hired/chosen/partnered with. And you haven’t, didn’t, aren’t, or were? We’ve all been there, but the Kingdom needs us to work together, NO, the Lord needs us to and the lost need us to and the low-spirited need you to!

I don’t suppose this post is for everyone but it is for some of you. If it is for you, I plead with you, make the most of your ministry, do all within your power to mend the relationship to work with those other pots of clay the Lord is molding.

It almost always starts good, go back, try to make it good again. It is almost always the Lord’s work that suffers. Be bigger than your ego!

And, God bless you for making the “as much as in you lieth...peace” possible.

PS: I’d thought about exploring Paul and Barnabus here and may in another later - sometimes the only way to move forward is to part ways...

As always I look forward to your comments.