If you had to give yourself a letter grade for confrontation, which letter would you pick? That was one of the questions I emailed to our ministry staff, curious to see how many of them were honest with others in their lives. “C+” one woman wrote, explaining that her big, harmony-loving heart made it difficult to speak the truth. “D+,” another admitted, “I RUN from confrontation.” “B,” an experienced Christian added, “with practice, it gets easier.”
How about you? Maybe your boyfriend gets angry over a hundred things that don’t really matter. Or your sister, who says she loves Jesus, is saying stuff on social media that Jesus doesn’t love. Or your buddy says things about other ethnic groups that make you cringe. Or your son moved in and started a family together with his girlfriend, as if sex after marriage was just his mom and dad’s idea.
Have you talked to them? Or, like most of us, are you just talking about them? If you’re flunking freshman confrontation class, God wants to help you in the days to come through his inspired Word. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16,17).
Scripture is useful for comforting those who confess and confronting those who don’t. So let’s open God’s Word and see how our Father can equip us for the agonizing but essential work of confronting one another.
