Colossians 3:12-14, “Therefore, God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity.”
My August 4, 2011 Thought For The Week; “A person in constant conflict with others is a person in constant conflict with himself,” came to me as I was observing some Facebook posts the other night. I love Facebook and try to use it as a medium to keep up with family and friends and to also share positive messages with others. One of my pet peaves of Facebook is when people air their “crap” to the world and take cheap shots at others. Of course in the grand scheme of things doing that is no different than people airing their “crap” about other people secretly behind other people’s backs.
I used to get into crap stirring and was pretty good at it. But, like you’ve heard me tell the story; when you are 28 and 1/2 years old going through horrible withdrawals in a drug treatment center from an opiate and barbiturate addiction and facing several felonies, and the only future you see for yourself is the hope of spending minimal time in a minimal security prison and you realize your decisions have caused you to lose almost everything you’ve worked for…well…you quit worrying about peoples’ crap and you begin to look much more deeply inside yourself and lo and behold you find you are so full of CRAP that any time spent getting into other people’s crap only lends to adding more dung to your pile. Dang I wish they would have let me write this way in high school English :). But it is the absolute truth!
People who are in constant conflict with others are in constant conflict with themselves.
This is why I love the 12 Steps and the 12 Step community. When you read the scripture verses above, ask yourself, “am I doing this or am I at least trying to do this?” If the answer is yes, good for you. If the answer is no, it is time to get to work.
When I decided to follow Jesus back in late August of 1987 while sitting alone late at night in Greene Hall Chemical Dependency Center I was anticipating an instant change and a miracle and it didn’t happen. You see I had accumulated so much crap over the years that it was totally covering the light (Jesus) inside of me. Jesus was in there but it was up to me to find him. So I began using the 12 Steps as my “crap digger” and slowly but surely things started to change. I can remember going to AA meetings every day for almost 3 years. My AA meetings served as another form of digging through my crap and I cannot tell you how many times someone would say something, and they probably had said it a dozen times before, but because my pile of crap was getting smaller, I could finally hear it. Sayings like, “live and let live,” “let go and let God,” “we’ll love you until you can love yourself.” But my favorites were: How important really is it? and GET OVER IT!
People…yes I am talking to my blog readers…life is too short to be in constant conflict! I know today that at the center of every conflict I am in (oh yeah I still have my moments) is ME! Let me repeat that…at the center of every conflict I am in–is ME. You’ll know you are starting to get with the program when you are able to admit you are the problem and begin speaking phrases to yourself like “How important really is it? and Get over it!” These phrases along with the 12 Steps, meetings and the help of others create a great crap cleanup system that will eventually take you to that place in Colossians 3:14, “Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity,” more than you ever thought possible.
Take a few minutes to sit back, relax, reflect, enjoy and watch this video that says it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p8qxGbpOk
it’s easy…but some of us are so darn complicated 🙂
P.E.A.C.E.
