21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (30 page)

In reality, we should practice being harder on ourselves than others simply because the Word tells us we will not be asked to give an account of their lives, but of our own: “Why do you criticize and pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you look down upon or despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Romans 14:10).

I read this Scripture often because it reminds me how God views my critical judgment of other people. Second Corinthians 13:5 says we are to examine ourselves, but we are usually examining others, which produces nothing but judgmental attitudes and eventually trouble.

Paul said to examine ourselves before God, not unto condemnation, but in order to recognize areas of need in our own lives, and to ask God for His help. But nothing will change if we are blind to the truth of our own shortcomings. Psalm 51:6 says, “Behold, you desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.”

Jesus has paid for our freedom to see the truth, yet it does us no good until we are truthful with ourselves, about ourselves. We fear looking at ourselves; our pride keeps us from wanting to see our own selfish tendencies. The way we evade facing this needed truth about ourselves is by finding fault with other people instead.

But when we judge others, we are setting ourselves up as gods in their lives. We have no right to judge others; they are God’s servants. James 4:12 says it very plainly: “[But you] who are you that [you presume to] pass judgment on your neighbor?”

Can you remember a time, or times, in your life when God has strongly convicted you of some fault? Perhaps some situation exposed it. Times like this tend to humble us, at least for a while.

I had always been short-tempered with people who gossiped about me, not admitting that there were times when I also gossiped about others. Then I got caught, and a friend who heard what I had said confronted me. I had no way out and was terribly humbled. For a while after that, I was very patient with other people who said things about me, but eventually my pride crept back in, and I had to be humbled all over again.

God tells us to humble ourselves, but if we don’t, He will do it for us. He either corrects us privately, or if we persist, He will do it publicly. We either fall on Jesus (the Rock) to be broken, or the Rock falls on us to break us—the choice is ours.

If God begins to deal with us about some wrong behavior, there is no point at all in trying to avoid Him. When God admonishes me for my behavior in a relationship, it is particularly difficult for me if I feel the other person does the same thing that God is asking me to change. I have told God more than once, “This is not fair. What about the other person?” He always reminds me that
how
and
when
He corrects another is His business. All I need to do is receive my chastisement from Him without complaint or comparison.

I remember one particular time when God was strongly dealing with me about not being rude to my husband. However, I felt Dave was also being rude to me, and I told God so. I was so frustrated about God confronting me and not Dave also, that I went to Dave and asked him if God was correcting him about anything.

He pondered for a moment, and then with an innocent look on his face, he said, “No, I don’t believe He is.” I look back now and those events amuse me, but they sure were not funny at the time.

Being willing to be first to do whatever is right is commendable behavior. Being willing to do what is right, even if no one else ever does what is right, is something that God may call upon us to do. We also may have to do what is right
for a long time
before we will get right results, and we may have to treat people in our lives right (humbly love them) a long time before we begin reaping the good seeds we have sown.

C
ORRECT WITH
S
INCERE
L
OVE

Remember, we have a right to pray for people but not to judge them. Should we ever try to correct another brother or sister in the Lord, or someone in our families? Yes, as we read in the beginning of this chapter, there may be times when God will use us to confront someone for misconduct, but once again it must be with humility, not having an exaggerated opinion of our importance or spirituality.

Paul was an apostle, and therefore God used him to bring correction to the churches quite frequently. But he said, “By the grace of God given unto me, I warn you not to estimate and think of yourself more highly than you ought to” (see Romans 12:3). I have always been struck by the fact that Paul said he corrected people because of God’s grace in him to do so, not just because he had an opinion and wanted to express it.

When we do anything by God’s grace, it has God’s power on it and therefore produces good results. When we try to correct people, but God has not given us the assignment to do so, we only cause trouble.

I quickly learned in the early years of my marriage that I am not my husband’s teacher, nor have I been assigned the job of correcting him. There have been rare occasions when God has used me in that way with Dave, and each of those times he has received the correction. The times I just decided I was going to tell him a thing or two only initiated a small war between us.

When we do correct people, it should be because we truly love and care about them, not just because we want to tell them what is wrong with them and act superior. I do have an assignment from God that requires frequent correction of people, both in my teaching and among my staff. I try to maintain a truthful attitude about myself also, lest I become bossy with them.

I can be the boss and not be bossy. I always share with people what they are doing right as well as wrong, and I also try to admit my own faults with them as well because I find this puts people at ease.

B
E
W
ILLING TO
B
E
W
RONG

Most of us have an out-of-balance craving to be right about everything. My personal belief is that the need to be right rises from insecurity, which is also a manifestation of pride. If we have peace with God and are secure in ourselves, why do we need to be right all the time? Why can’t we be wrong about something without feeling wrong about ourselves?

It is amazing, the fleshly feelings we have when we try to sit quietly and let someone else think he is right when we are convinced we’re the one who’s right. Dave and I both have rather strong personalities in many ways and neither of us enjoys saying, “I was wrong.” We both do it at times, but we are still in the process of learning to enjoy it.

First Corinthians 13 says love doesn’t demand its own way. That means there are times when we will have to give up what we think is our right to be right. It is amazing how many arguments we can avoid if someone is willing to say, “I think I’m right, but I may be wrong.” Even if one party has the humility to say he could even
possibly
be wrong, it seems to dissipate the argument.

Sometimes we argue over things that don’t even make sense— things so unimportant that they should be left entirely alone. Dave and I used to argue over directions on how to get to a place we were going; he wanted to go one way, and I thought another way was a little bit shorter. It would have been better to take a little longer to get there, if that ended up being the case, rather than argue about it. Most of the time there is more than one right answer, and peace is much more important than having your own way.

The Word says that a servant of the Lord must “have nothing to do with trifling (ill-informed, unedifying, stupid) controversies over ignorant questionings, for you know that they foster strife and breed quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23). Staying out of strife is not a suggestion; it is a command from the Lord.

We lose our power when we lose our peace. We hinder the flow of our anointing, which is one of the most precious treasures we have, and we also hinder our blessings from flowing in abundance. Remember the example I gave in the beginning of the book about

Abraham and Lot? Abraham was so determined to stay out of strife that he allowed Lot to choose the best part of the land for himself, while he (Abraham) took what was left. God blessed Abraham and rewarded him for his right choice by telling him he could have all he could see as he looked north, south, east and west.

We can be prideful or peaceful. Pride says, “I am right” and has no willingness to even consider it might be wrong. Humility says, “I may be wrong, and it is not that important whether I am right or not.”

I believe you can see why humility is the basis for any successful relationship. Even if only one person in the relationship will treat the other with loving humility, the relationship will flourish, because God promises to lift up the one that is humble (see Psalm 147:6). The Word also says that the one “who is of a humble spirit will obtain honor.” In this light, we should never fear the consequences of adapting ourselves to the needs of someone else. In the next chapter, we will look at the rewards of being Peacemakers by remaining flexible and encouraging others.

Peacekeeper #16
ADAPT YOURSELF TO
THE NEEDS OF OTHERS

T
he Word says, “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). First Peter 3:11 makes this very clear: “Let him turn away from wickedness and shun it, and let him do right. Let him search for peace (harmony; undisturbedness from fears, agitating passions, and moral conflicts) and seek it eagerly. [Do not merely desire peaceful relations with God, with your fellowmen, and with yourself, but pursue, go after them!]”

Peaceful relationships seem to be fading away in our society. The divorce rate is still climbing, and the percentage of failed marriages is said to be even higher among Christians than other people in the world. What is wrong? Is it the stressful society in which we live, or is selfishness still on a rampage?

The Word says that in the last days will come “times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered” (2 Timothy 3:1–2). They will love money, be greedy, hard-hearted, disobedient, immoral, lacking self-control, and they will have no desire to make peace.

We are living in those times. These are days of great moral darkness, and we, as believers in Jesus Christ, must let our light shine out in the darkness. In practicality, that means we must let our behavior emulate that of Jesus and not be sucked into the world and its system. If people treat us badly, we cannot return evil for evil, but rather forgiveness and love so that others will see God’s love in the way we treat people.

Unity among people is pleasant. It releases blessings from God and the anointing power of His presence (see Psalm 133:1–3). Unity, harmony, and peace in relationships won’t just come to us; we must go after them with all of our might. We must not wait for someone else to make the first move; we must be Peacemakers; we must make and maintain peace.

One usually must be spiritually mature before he will choose aggressively to be the peacemaker. Jesus said the Peacemakers will be called “the sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). As I have mentioned before, He said “sons,” not children, indicating maturity. We are called to lay aside childish behavior and make and maintain peace as responsible sons and daughters of God.

Not all people are as easy to get along with as others. It seems we all have some people assigned to us in life who are like sandpaper. They always seem to grate on us and make a habit of being difficult. They are never happy, no matter what we give or do for them. They regularly find fault and rarely, if ever, encourage us in any way. They are takers and not givers.

Then there are the people who have irritating habits. We love them; we may even be married to them, yet they have one or more idiosyncrasies that continue to rub us the wrong way. An example is those who feel they must give their opinion on everything, whether anyone asks for it or not. Then there are the people who dominate all conversations, to whom we rarely, if ever, get to express ourselves. Even when we try, they interrupt us. They may not even realize they are making conversation difficult; they may be doing something as simple as slurping their soup or popping their chewing gum, but the distraction throws off our concentration and frustrates us.

My point is that we all get opportunities to hold our peace and to be Peacemakers. I dare say that every person in this world has some challenging people in his or her life. Of course, we must remember that we are also challenges to others. Someone struggles with us, with our personalities and habits, just as we struggle with others.

A
RE
Y
OU
R
EAPING
W
HAT
Y
OU
H
AVE
S
OWN?

We like the law of sowing and reaping if we are reaping good seeds we have sown, but we will also reap from the bad seeds we cast along our paths. I remember a time when I felt Dave was being particularly crude and rough in the way he was speaking to me. I immediately felt offended and began to complain to the Lord. He quickly reminded me that I had talked to Dave the same way for years and was only reaping on seeds I had sown in the past.

Actually Dave rarely talked to me in that brisk way, whereas I had probably spent many years being grumpy with him. I had improved and had forgotten about all the years I had spoken that way to him. We want other people to be patient with our faults, but we are not always willing to give others the same mercy and grace we want to receive.

Facing truth is one of the most beneficial things we ever do in life, but it must be truth about ourselves that we face. Truth sets us free; self-deception keeps us in bondage.

Why is it so painful to see ourselves as we really are? Simply because of pride. When we see ourselves in reality, the way others see us, our pride is hurt and we are embarrassed.