The Fight Club

At the North Point Community Church, we’ve been listening to testimonies from several people who decided to fight for a relationship. Daughter father, son father. If you've had ANY broken relationships in your life, threw in the towel or had a misunderstanding you should really listen to these messages.

It has gotten me thinking, are there relationships that I shouldn’t have thrown the gloves in on or ones that I should still be fighting for? I really didn’t come up with much, except a couple friendships. It’s hard to get rid of me, like it or not. It DID send me on a road, thinking about those relationships I do have. The ones that need to be rectified or how I could fulfill my role (daughter, sister, niece, friend, etc.) better. And overall how does the strength (or lack there) of the relationship impact my life and everyday emotional well being.

I'm an introspective person, so there'll be days when something doesn't feel right about a relationship and I'll go deep inside trying to figure it out why! Is it something I did or said? I'm working at verbalizing those times with friends and family so the melancholy that soon trails after that isn't as long, but I guess I can't change my personality.

Enough about me and getting back to the fight. Here a thought, if there’s a wall between you and someone you love, why keep trying to knock the wall down? Get a ladder and climb over to the other side. If you feel the relationship is worth fighting for, then fight. Don’t stand ground in hopes that he/she will meet you more than half way or think that it's over.

Wow, eat my words. Rightness and stubborness are ugly qualities that I possess. I like to be right and I'm stubborn. Am I creating a safe environment for those I'm surrounded by? Are there people who don't feel comfortable talking to me because of the atmosphere I create?

If there is anything the last four messages have taught me, it's that there are relationships worth fighting for. It's not easy. It may not be perceived as not "cool", but if I want to live a life loving people I go to do it. There are ways I can strengthen a relationship. Andy Stanley talks in the last message about building a bridge, not burning. We are to be more relational with people then right or stubborn or taking a stand. If we're going to fight for a relationship that is dead or dying, we need to quite trying to be right and making OUR point. We need to quit hiding behind this and not worry about what others would think. Uncomfortableness many times becomes this overwhelming feeling and so you get scared and timid about fighting. Bottomline is it's about reconcilation.

The strategy we've been given to fight is this: Create a save relational environment . EVERYBODY needs to feel safe to come out of the shell. When the person finally feels safe, they're willing to talk to YOU about the things YOU want to talk about. You may try and try and try to talk about something with a son or daugher, friend or spouse but they need to feel SAFE in order to do that.

Andy tells us to keep this in mind, a moto per say, "The best defense is NO defense."

So are there relationships you need to put on the red gloves and fight for? Are there hurts SO deep that it seems almost impossible? Who's coming to mind when you think about a previous hurt or broken relationship? What's stopping you for fighting?

Fight. Fight. Fight for it!

"Reconcilation paves the way to relationship and relationship paves the way to influence". -Andy Stanley