Ok. If you are like me and read the title of this blog, it is possible you recoiled. To confront is hard, and for some of us it is nearly impossible.

Confrontation, for some of us, can bring experiences of upset, heartache and stress. For others, they may not like to confront, just simply because it means that it is unpleasant. There are others who feel that it is their obligation to confront, and feel no sense of either joy or sadness at the thought.

I have just had a few days of confronting and being confronted. I have just spent a few years trying to confront a problem to bring about change… and nothing has happened. For those that know me, I was trying to be a gentle as I could while not trying to upset too many.

I do not like confrontation… I will run from it.

However, I will confront. I do not like to see people suffer and I don’t like bullies treating others badly. These two things get my back up. I have a favourite saying – “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

Yesterday a memory post came up on my Facebook feed. It was a quote from Lisa Bevere from Messenger International. On the 2nd March 2016, I had shared her Facebook post from that day on my Facebook page. The  words were simple but effective…

https://www.facebook.com/lisabevere.page/posts/10156502840940447

It was interesting that for that exactly a year ago, I found a reason to share this, and yesterday I needed to hear it.

Today, the pain of having to be confrontive (yes, I know there is no such word, but it seems appropriate) for three days straight was sitting wearily in my heart. I hated it. But yet for anything to change it needed to happen. Now I have to leave the rest to see if there is change.

You cannot make people change. There is a saying that goes like this – “you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” Another larrikin one time said, “yes, but you can run him until he is thirsty.”

People will only change often if it suits them and it will make their life better…even if that is to shut you up! But I often wonder this…

Will the change be long lasting and permanent?

This is the other point I want to make, if you do not confront, you cannot sit back and complain about no change. Simple… as… that!

There is no way we can look at a situation going on in front of our eyes and not do or say something, and then think we have the right to whinge and complain. Sorry, that is not an option.

The final point I feel to make today is this….

Why do you want to confront? Are you going to do it with as much compassion and love that you would expect for yourself, while keeping the integrity and steadfastness for the need to change?

I can’t answer for you, I can only answer for me. I hope over time people would see me not as unmerciful and obnoxious (demanding that I am right) but caring, concerned, and confronting them while allowing that their dignity is firmly in place.

I can only hope and pray for more wisdom, along with the heart to respond correctly to another person’s confrontation of my own need to change.

 

Be blessed.