Think about your family growing up.  Every family has unspoken rules.  You grow up, slowly being informed of these rules through family behavior.  Think about these questions:

• How did you handle conflict?
• What was the family method for solving problems?
• Was forgiveness obvious and regular?
• Did you often see forgiveness asked for and given?
• How did your family communicate?
• Who was typically in control?
• Was your family quiet or loud?
• Did you have dinner together… if so… what were your conversations like?
• Were there certain topics that could not be talked about or was everything fair game?
• How was anger expressed?
• Was it more positive or was it more explosive?
• Were threats and guilt used to manipulate?
• Were people encouraged to keep growing in their personal relating skills?
• Were you relaxed at home or often “walking on eggshells?”
• Did you serve each other or were there only one or two who were expected to serve?
• What were your family relationships like with other families?

These things shaped your views on relationships and many of these values became your values… which means many of your family struggles may have become your struggles too.  You have not become who you are all by yourself.

Here is a difficulty: sin and grace live together in all relationships.  Sin gets in the way of what grace can do but grace covers what sin causes.  Where sin and grace intersect… great things can happen but if not guided through the intersection, devastation can result.  

Wisdom from your friends is not enough.  Techniques from self-help books will let you down and not bring you lasting change.  These promise you can change relationships without changing yourself and will leave us struggling with:

• Letting go of the hurt.
• Getting angry at the person who complicates our life.
• Being defensive when challenged.
• Avoiding conflict.
• Being too political at work.
• Thinking broken, hurting relationships will never get better.
• Talking about people behind their backs.
• Lying to others because you are trying to control what they think.
• Lowering your standard to gain someone’s approval.
• Envying other relationships.
• Controlling others.
• Exploding on people when things don’t go our way.
• Pushing people away from us.

You see, God made you for relationships and this side of heaven all relationships are difficult.  Because deep inside we know relationships are important, we are tempted to make them the ultimate goal but God wants them to, instead, be part of leading you toward His goal.   There are no secrets that will lead you to problem-free relationships and at some point, you may wonder if relationships are even worth the struggle.  But God keeps us in messy relationships for his redemptive purpose so stay in there.  Through this series, we will see God’s scripture offering us a clear hope for relationships.

I hope to see you Sunday morning as we continue this journey through God’s perspective of bad blood.