The Peace Maker - By Ken Sandy
I overheard a conversation the other day between a mother and her son. The son was replying, “if they do that we’ll just sue them.” I let out a sigh as the perspectives of our world continue to stun me. Instead of having conversations with people we turn to taking action. Research even shows that majority of disagreements are actually the result of miscommunication. When we should be communicating more, we seem to be communicating less and turning to legal action to duel it out. Wasted time, wasted monies, and wasted emotions that are causing nothing but more harm, deeper holes, and bigger miscommunications.
In Ken Sande’s book, The Peace Maker” he shares that “God delights to breath his grace through peacemakers and use them to dissipate anger, improve understanding, promote justice, and encourage repentance and reconiliation.” Grace - by definition includes: elegance, politeness, generosity of spirit, capacity to tolerate, accomodate and fogive. Yet we live in a society that seems to extend anything, but those things. Sande presents the four G’s as a approach to resolving conflict:
Glorify God
Get the log out of our own eye
Gently restore
Go and be reconciled
Sande encourages us that through such application we can “find lasting solutions to serious problems, experience personal growth, deepen relationships, and experience and demonstrate the love of God.
In effort to help us understand various responses to conflict, Sande introduces the Slippery Slope of Conflict where people either want to escape (suicide, flight, denial), make peace (overlook, reconciliation, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, accountability), or attack (assault, litigation, murder). He continues to identify the causes of conflict such as differences (values, goals, gifts, priorities, expectations, interests, opinions), competition over limited resources (time, money), or by attitudes and habits that lead to words and actions. Learning to deal with conflict not only helps us in our relationships at home, work, and overall day to day encounters, but it helps us set an example for those watching such as our children. They will often look at how we handle conflict and apply it to conflicts at school, in their future workplaces, and even in their own marriages.
Throughout this book the author helps us learn how to live at peace, pick our battles wisely, confess of our wrongdoings, speak truth, meet with those who have offended us or us them to talk things through, forgive, look at others interests, and even when all else fails how to overcome evil with good. The advice given in this book along with the step by step instructions to help you through preparing for those tough conversations is gold. My entire book is marked with suggestions starred, ideas underlined, scripture circled, and even sections highlighted with exclamation marks next to them.
Overall, throughout the entire book the author tries to make it clear that we cannot control other people, their actions, nor their responses; we can’t even control the outcome of conflicts, but we can control and will be held responsible for how we handled ourselves, how we responded, the choices we make, and our overall willingness to try to live at peace. Living at peace is NOT being a doormat, but trying to live at peace even among the trials of conflict will provide opportunities to “glorify God, serve others, and to grow.”
I highly recommend this book especially if you have gone through a divorce, a family fall out, or any type of legal action against you or you toward someone else. It truly will provide the tools to step up and be the peace maker.