First Chronicles Chapter 19
Things Can Easily Get Out Of Hand.
The king of Ammon died and King David sent men to console the family. The son, King Nahash, the new king of Ammon took King David’s act of kindness and misinterpreted it as an evil plot to overtake his kingdom. So he had the king of Aram join forces with him to go into battle against King David. But God’s hand was with King David and he defeated both the Ammonites and the Aramians. After the battle the Aramians regretted going into battle and made peace with King David
Perhaps we can learn something from this:
1. Be very careful how you interpret the motives of others. If you assume the worst then a rage of hate or anger or bitterness will grow from it and destroy the relationship.
2. Before you jump to conclusions, communicate with the others so as to resolve the problem that you think is at hand
3. Do whatever you can to keep peace instead of reacting with your emotions. Don’t try to humiliate the other party, or gossip about them or try and start a battle against them by turning others against them.
4. If you try to communicate, and make peace, and not react with your emotions, and you find that the other party’s intent was indeed evil, even then, before defending yourself do good to those who mistreated you and pray for them, and ask for God’s guidance on how to resolve it without having things get nasty and dirty.
5. If something has happened in the past, maybe now is a good time to try and make amends through forgiveness and reconciliation.
Have a good day!
