When the Lord takes pleasure in anyone’s way, He causes their
enemies to make peace with them.
Proverbs 16:7
This ends this reading from God's holy word.
Thanks be to God.
Have you ever had an enemy? Someone who it seemed was always at odds
with you?
Maybe your enemy is someone at work. Maybe it’s a neighbor. Maybe it’s
someone in your own family as it can be many a time (Does anything hurt as much
as someone who is flesh and blood being your adversary?).
Yes, we all have enemies and perhaps the one thing we crave more than
anything when we have them is for the conflicts to end, taking with them the stress,
anxiety, angst, and fear that accompanies them. We long to be liberated, to
experience peace once again in our lives. We wish for things to return to some
sense of normalcy.
I remember an incident once that I ran into. I was a Departmental
Leading Chief on one of the ships I served on and had just gotten a new
Department Head, a Navy Officer, to work for. He came on board and instead of
partnering with me to run the department, he sought to be oppositional in every
matter we had to handle together. Everything was a battle, as if he needed to
assert his authority over me by choosing a side and fighting me to win. It was
a real difficult, challenging, and caustic work environment to say the least
and it wasn’t just me. He seemed to do it with everyone.
So how did I handle this situation? It seemed like it was going to be a
few years of long term misery and all out warring as he and I were going to be
stationed together for awhile. No one was going to be the better for that
unless this situation got fixed. I needed help and was at a loss as to how to
deescalate things and bring the working relationship to a place where we could
cooperate and function properly for the good of the people we were appointed to
lead. And so I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed.
That was the key. I fell back on my faith and allowed the Lord to help
me through the situation. I wrote yesterday about how He is always working
things out to their proper end. Well, that’s just what He did here as well
fulfilling yet another of His proverbs:
When the Lord takes pleasure
in anyone’s way, He causes their enemies to make peace with them. Proverbs
16:7
I was strong in my walk with the Lord and committed to live each day as
Jesus lived. Everyone I worked with knew that about me, even my new boss. And
if I acted in any other way than how Jesus would have acted, then I would have
sinned and brought discredit to His holy and precious name. There was a sense
of accountability I always felt and I embraced it because I wanted to be held
in check. As a result, my ways were the ways of Christ and those ways will
always bring the Lord pleasure.
Back to my story.
For it came time to debrief annual evaluations and I had to sit down
with my Department Head to do mine. He asked me how I thought things were
going, and I, never one to not tell the truth, shared with him my feelings,
critiquing him but doing so professionally. If we were going to get things
where they needed to be, we were going to have to talk about things openly.
Well, right after I finished sharing what my concerns were (and he asked
me, remember), he launched into a verbal assault that went on for a minute
maybe two. He was yelling at me at the top of his lungs and cursing me out,
telling me that I don’t understand what he is doing and I have no right to
criticize him. His reaction shocked me a little and although it angered me at
first, I didn’t go at it with him. Instead, I allowed the Holy Spirit to take
over and bring me calm in the midst of the conflict. I sat there and looked at
him and waited for him to finish, allowing him to get everything out of his
system. You see, he needed to purge before the Lord could enter in and do
something special.
After he finished, I asked him if I could speak now and he said, “OK.”
I, in a calm manner, simply told him that I thought we were sitting down to
discuss concerns about our department and how things were running. I said, “I
thought that we were here to have a professional discussion. What I didn’t come
here for was to be yelled at like a dog and verbally abused. And so if this is
where this meeting is going and if this is going to continue, then I have
nothing else to say and I’m finished.”
What happened next is what is so amazing (and miraculous) about this
testimony. For my department head leaned back in his chair, breathed out a big
breath like one does when they are stressed, and said to me, “Senior Chief, I
am sorry for speaking to you like that.” And I gladly accepted his apology and
told him I forgave him.
You know, from that point on, we had as good a professional working
relationship as you could ask for and it all happened because the Prince of
peace caused one who was my enemy to make peace with me. Once again, the word
of the Lord had been fulfilled.
I don’t know what you are going through today but maybe you have a
situation where you are dealing with an adversary. My best counsel for you is
to follow the word of the Lord today from Proverbs 16:7 and find your way to
peace, walking in the way of Jesus so that the Lord sees your life as pleasing
and then causes your enemies to choose peace over war in their dealings with
you.
Friends, the word of the Lord is truth. I witnessed it myself and know
it will work for you too. Stay encouraged, faithful, and trusting. He will
handle the rest.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
