Confrontation and the Status Quo

This past week was difficult for me. As I now see, it was hard because my character was challenged. This last week was the first time in a long time I felt like I could have blown up on somebody; saying things I did not mean to say, yet saying them because I was so frustrated with the situation. During my weekly accountability time with some of my brothers in Christ, they saw me in a different light. A light that I choose not to show very often. As one of the guys put it, he saw fire in my eyes.

As the week unfolded, I felt like my willingness to serve had been taken advantage of. While I am in a unique situation to bear a large amount of responsibility, I found it hard to accept all of the responsibility handed me.

The problem I saw was that I was handed the task of making a huge part of an event fall into place. Sure I can handle that in a normal situation; however I was given 4 days to make it happen. It would have been fine if I had been part of the planning from square one, but it's an entirely different ballgame to assume the load 4 days from the event.

That was the problem. How did I react? I'm not sure. I would like to say I reacted rationally and clear headed. But I'm still not positive that's how I approached things. Given the short notice of my problem, I tried to confront the problem on short notice terms. My justification was that things would continue down the path of me taking more and more responsibility; unless I said something quickly. I was given the responsibility on Tuesday, gave it a day to become a little more level headed, and on Thursday I confronted the situation.

My current struggles arise from how things panned out. I realized Wednesday as I was rationally thinking through my actions that some of my frustration came from past wrongs that I decided to let slip. So Thursday's confrontation was more than confronting the current situation to encompass past and present problems. In my speech, I thought I was level-headed and non-condescending, but firm.

So as I start a new week I am searching for an equilibrium level between confrontation (hard love) and grace. I have previously thought that I should abound in grace much like Jesus and leave the hard love for God. But I have experienced this past week that hard love needs to be present. Even Jesus (my ultimate model) confronted the people selling sacrifices in the temple, so that God could shine through.