Fighting with Fire

I hate fights.

As a second/middle child, many of my traits fall into the peace keeper corner. Combine that with my name, which means peace, and it all starts to make sense like it was made up in a corny fairy tale.
Being surrounded with "qualities of peace" does that mean that conflict never happens? Oh, on the contrary. It's just that whenever conflict does happen- it must be resolved. Immediately. Lasting conflict makes me ill.

On Wednesday our young adult church group did a game/exercise where we pretended we were at a conference in front of thousands of people. We would be called on the spot and given a random topic to speak on. We would then have to explain the gospel through whatever topic we were given. There were a lot of "interesting" topics: hair spray, bubble gum, even sky scrapers. It was impossible not to be doubled over in laughter for most of these. However, there were also a few that literally took my breath away at how God managed to use a random topic to show his plan for us. One of them was charcoal. The other was candles.

I won't attempt at recreating what was said. But, what spoke to me most was God sometimes has to throw us into the fire to make us straight. Fights make me feel like I'm being thrown in the fire. And probably most important, and most painful, when I'm thrown in the fire my sinful nature rages in protest. In the fire, I see what I'm holding onto, or what's keeping me from being more like Christ.

That's why I hate fights. Sure, I might in fact be a peace keeper. But, most importantly, I hate fights because I'm sinful. It's impossible to be in a fight and not be reminded that you are not as good as you pretend to be.

So, here's to being thrown in the fire and allowing God to burn anything that's not of Him.