Skip to main content

Time to stop competing

Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay. (Sallust)

A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. (James 3:3-6)

Harmony is probably one of the most difficult things for humans to achieve. Why is that? It could just be this propensity we have to always seek our own 'best interest' in life, or our insane desire to always be out ahead of each other in one way or another. Harmony can be disturbed when competition becomes the focus. It can be destroyed when envy leads us to not only desire to be 'ahead' or 'better than', but to achieve it regardless of the cost to us. It might just be that we desire harmony, but have no clue how to achieve it, having been in competition with one another for so long we don't even realize we are. It doesn't take much to achieve true harmony - just lives committed to one purpose. Oh, that isn't all that easy, you say? In Christ, all things are possible - even harmony!

The main culprit in the destruction of harmony in the home, workplace, or communities might just go overlooked because it is so simple - our words. All of us need to know the power of our words. We also need to understand the motivation behind them. It is one thing to say 'nice things' - it is another to actually have the internal motivation that means them. I can say you are beautiful, but on the inside, I could be envious of your clear complexion, thin figure, and perfectly coifed hair. The words said one thing, but the internal 'meaning' of those words was quite different. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can actually help us each bring our 'internal motivation' and our words into unity. We need the power of God's Word working within us if we are ever to achieve perfect harmony.

Sometimes we believe harmony is really the achievement of consensus - the big word that just means we came to some 'common ground' we can each agree to pursue. In terms of obedience to God, it is rare that we reach 'consensus'. God requires certain actions on our part - they aren't negotiable. One of those things is love - love one another as he first loved us. Harmony requires understanding and empathy. It means we get out of ourselves long enough to see things the way God sees them - allowing him to move our hearts as his heart is moved. That may see a little too simple, but if we began to see things and others as God sees them, do you think we'd still be in competition with one another? Instead of competing, we'd draw another along so they could enjoy what God provides so abundantly. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,