Most of us have experienced the frustration that occurs when a conflict between family members drags into the holidays. Not many of us can say we’ve never seen a situation blown so far out of proportion that bonds built over decades are broken in seconds. Sadly, some of us have even had to admit that our desire for reconciliation has dwindled over time. Whether rifts were caused by legitimate hurts requiring real boundaries or less serious miscommunications and differences of opinions, conflict is never greeted with a welcome mat.
Unfortunately, since sin is often a driving force behind conflict, family strife is inevitable. But God created us to belong, to be loving members of a family—first and foremost His family. He made each of His beautifully diverse image-bearers to be valuable and valued parts of a whole, to thrive within a healthy interdependent global community, and to need each other.
Though our ingrained need for intimacy and belonging may feel like our greatest weakness at times, this foundation for fellowship is in fact our greatest strength as individuals created through and for community. So, when strife slithers in through unresolved conflicts, festering misunderstandings, unspoken or unmet needs, or abuse, the community God planned to use for His glory can cause scars that impact generations. No family is affected more deeply and negatively by familial strife than the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-generational family God has set apart and called His own—the Church.
The Burden of Belonging
Family brokenness and hurt impacts most of us, in some way or another. Many of us have sought to fill our need for authentic relationships in spaces that make us feel accepted. That dire need for approval, however, can come at a price we don’t truly comprehend until we’ve already compromised our well-being or contorted our belief system. Pandering to please people can lead to resentment, bitterness, and a burden of belonging that pulls us further from God, distorts our identity, and blurs our vision so we’re prone to stray from the path He’s set before us. Begging to belong, like badgering someone to change so they can fit our version of acceptable, never leads to the healthy and holy relationships God intends for His people.
The apostle Paul rightly warned believers to avoid conforming to the world and instead be transformed by God’s Spirit and God’s Word (Romans 12:2). However, most of us have been tempted to expect people to look like or act like other people instead of like Jesus. This unbiblical approach to conditional fellowship results in pushing unbelievers and even devoted believers further away from us, from God, and from His Church. When we destroy authentic relationships through expressions of judgment, insecurity, or fear of the unfamiliar, we lose opportunities to live as witnesses who invite others to draw near to God the Father so God the Spirit can make us all look like God the Son.
Sowing Seeds of Strife
The Scriptures offer healthy and holy examples of biblical exhortation, which is needed. God encourages believers to come alongside each other in prayer as He changes us while using us as individuals and as a community of believers. However, God never asks us to manufacture or force the transforming work of the Spirit in someone else’s life, or to fake Christ-like character in our own lives.
Our attempts to do so always result in sowing seeds of unnecessary strife and the worship of something besides God. When we insist our way is the only way to think, behave, or even worship the one true God, “self” is most likely the object of our worship. When Luke wrote his letter to Theophilus, he highlighted how the apostle Paul confronted both unbelievers and believers about idolatry. Paul went to the Jewish synagogue in Athens and “reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:1–2). He didn’t share his opinions or his experiences. Instead, by the power of the Spirit of God working in and through him, Paul remained focused on the unerring, infallible, God-breathed words of Scripture.
Fortified by the Faithful Foundation of Our Faith
In a world marked by confusion and competing voices, even those who are devoted to following Christ can struggle to agree on how to interpret, teach, and live out God’s Word. But Scripture can never mean what Scripture has never meant before, nor does God’s Word change. So, when we rely on the power of the Spirit, we can prayerfully consider the context in which God chose to deliver His Word to the world—from the time period to the culture, from His chosen messages to His chosen messengers. Only with our total dependance on and submission to the Holy Spirit, only with an eternal perspective, and only together with God’s diverse global family will we be able to avoid conforming His Word to our world and agendas, which are influenced by our experiences, perceptions, prejudices, and biases.
God deliberately designed His intentionally diverse and interdependent global family—all members of one body and all citizens of heaven—so that we can fulfill His purpose by using the gifts He’s entrusted to us. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:23–28).
As active members of the global Church, we are better equipped to reach those around the world who have yet to encounter the unconditional love and life-transforming grace of our selfless Savior. Clearly, there is no room for division in God’s family. However, unity is not synonymous with conformity or uniformity. Our God-designed differences as individuals enable each of us to contribute to the whole family of believers like no one else can. As we submit to the same Spirit who dwells in us, He works in us and connects us for the glory of God and according to the will of God.
The Church is freed from the bondage of family strife, so God can use our conflicts to strengthen our bonds with Him and with one another. If we are willing to humbly surrender our idols and submit to the Spirit, He’ll transform our hearts and our minds so that others can recognize us as Christ’s representatives. Then, perhaps more of God’s image-bearers will reach out to Him . . . because of how we love with our hope fortified by the faithful foundation of our faith—Jesus!
—Written by Xochitl Dixon. Used by permission from the author.
