Do you know what qualities you need to confront well?
Before I began teaching a workshop on interpersonal skills, I greeted one of the participants, whom I barely knew. She noticed I had lipstick on my teeth and quietly told me, so no one else even heard. I was so grateful, because I didn’t realize it. I would have been embarrassed to have taught the session and later discovered it.
You may wonder why I start with such a simple example. Are you thinking, “That’s not confronting.” Most of us have a wrong view of confronting. In reality, biblical confrontation is often simply pointing out a blind spot in someone else. Dictionary.com defines it as a “meeting of persons face to face; an open conflict of opposing ideas, forces, etc.; a bringing together of ideas, themes, etc., for comparison.” Most people only focus on the negative side of confrontation, rather than on its positives.
Are you comfortable with confronting? Is it something you look forward to? For many of us, confronting is one of the most difficult parts of relating to others, yet it is essential to godly relationships. God’s Word has numerous verses and examples of confrontations.
Dr. Dorothy Gish studied over four hundred Christian workers from various organizations and countries. Of sixty stressors, “confronting others when necessary” was the most frequently mentioned. More than 50 percent said they experienced “considerable” to “great” stress over confronting!
What qualities do you need to confront well? For example, you may say, “It takes courage and respect to confront well.” List every quality you need in order to confront well.
It takes ____________ to confront well.
Excerpted from Reconcilable Differences: Strategies for Your Journey through Conflict.