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CONFRONTATION
In his column for REV Magazine, Charles Lowery writes about
a friend that loved him enough to tell him the truth. After complaining about
some lower back pain, his friend said to him, “your back isn’t your problem, Charles,
it’s your stomach. Your stomach is so big it’s pulling on your back.” Charles
resisted the temptation to be offended and realized his friend was right. He
lost the weight and his “back” problem went away. Charles commented on the
incident by saying, “A friend will see through you…and also see you through.”
—REV, May/June 2003 Illustration by Jim L. Wilson
Proverbs
27:6 NLT “Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”
CONFRONTATION
It was a classic match-up. Twenty game winner, "The
Rocket," Roger Clemens took the hill for the World Champion New York
Yankees in game 7 of the 2001 World Series against twenty-two game winner, Curt
Schilling, the Arizona Diamondback's ace. It's not the first time they squared
off, they'd done so a decade before in a weight room.
In the winter of 1991, Clemens noticed Schilling working out
in an adjacent weight room at the Astrodome. The twenty-eight year old Clemens
asked the younger, twenty-four year old Schilling if they could talk.
Schilling thought it would be cool to talk some baseball
with Clemens, but he had no idea what Clemens had on his mind. Clemens got in
Schilling's face, telling him he wasn't taking advantage of the gifts God had
given him, he wasn't respecting himself, his teammates or the game. According
to Clemens, the conversation got heated.
And it had an impact on Schilling.
"I walked away saying to myself, 'You know, No. 1, why
would he care as much as he did? And, No. 2, if he did care, there must be
something there.'" Schilling said. "I began to turn a corner at that
point in my career, both on and off the field."
—http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news/ap/20011104/ap-worldseries-clemensvsschilling.html
Illustration by Jim L. Wilson
Who was the winning pitcher of Game 7? Neither of them,
Randy Johnson got the "W" in relief of Schilling, but that doesn't
really matter, they both pitched well, and showed respect for themselves, their
teammates and the game.
I don't know for sure, but I'm almost positive that game 7
was a proud day for Clemens. First, because he pitched well, but second because
someone he cared enough for to confront ten years earlier, pitched just as
well.
Proverbs
27:17 NIV "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
CONFRONTATION
"Some of the members we inherited were so out of step
with the flavor of the church, so set on their own agenda, that I actually
began to pray they would leave. One man informed me that he, too, was ordained
and should be allowed to preach on Sunday nights. What I observed in his
spiritual life, however, indicated just the opposite.
Confrontation came hard because we could ill afford to lose
people. But if these members were to stay, the result would be ongoing
discord—and I knew that the Lord would never bless that kind of mess with the
spiritual power we so desperately needed. One by one, these people made their
exit. On a couple of occasions I even had to help answer my own prayers by
suggesting that members consider another church. I was learning that in
pastoral work, as in basketball, sometimes you have to confront."
—From "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's
Spirit Invades the Heart of His People" by Jim Cymbala, p. 21 Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson
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