You know how we all have two responses to conflict-- fight or flight?? Well, I'm flight all the way, all day long. I'm not an aggressive person, and often, I see my passivity as a flaw because I tend to let people "walk over me." I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've had many conversations with close friends about how I handle conflict and just processing through situations. Through these conversations, I have found that my primary "coping mechanism" for conflict is just to avoid it at all costs, to retreat, to cower, to close myself off until the storm has passed and all has cooled down.
On the way to camp this week, I finished reading Goliath Must Fall by Louie Giglio, a book that I can honestly say the Lord used to change my view of conflict. I have always viewed any person or any circumstance that I was in conflict with as Goliath, while I was David scrambling to find smooth stones for my slingshot and praying that the Lord would come through and help me win the battle. However, this book totally changed my view of this story and opened my eyes to the radical victory and freedom found in Christ. See, we are not David in this story... we are the Israelites cowering in fear for forty days and forty nights unable to move forward, unable to fight the victory, but, don't miss the most amazing part of the story... JESUS is David! He is fighting for us, and the victory is won! With one smooth stone, He has taken down every giant that we will ever face in our lifetime. Whether it's fear, rejection, comfort, anger, addiction, or any sub-category of these, He has defeated each and every giant! So, in every battle, in every conflict, I don't have to cower in fear because He has already fought the battle for me, and (spoiler alert) He WON! A M E N. This awesome news brought such peace to my heart! (Side note: If you haven't read this book, run, don't walk, to the nearest book store or Amazon and grab it! Seriously one of the most powerful books I've ever read.)
So, I went into this week P U M P E D to see all that the Lord was going to do in my life and in the lives of the students. Throughout this week, we saw Him move in ways that I could never describe with words, but, if you catch me in person, ask me about it, I'd love to try! However, even through all of the joy in worship, and digging into the Word, a small bit of conflict started to creep in. Now, this was nothing major, and, for most, it probably would have been something that you sighed over and moved on, but, let me remind you from the beginning of this blog, conflict (more specifically the rejection I feel during conflict) was my giant. So, with every little instance of conflict, I resorted to my coping mechanism and I tried to retreat more and more. My first instinct was to just sit back, say nothing, and just hold it all in. If I didn't say anything, then there would be no conflict, right? However, every single time the issue arose again, I'd look for a place to hide, to run, and there was no place to be found. (I love that the Lord loves us too much to let us simply run away from the battle and miss the fact that He has already won the war for us!) I prayed through it, I talked peacefully through the conflict with the people that I needed to address it with, and I felt the Lord compel me to call on an ally, so I did, and she helped me by addressing the issue. That was it. Conflict resolved. The small issue got better each day, and I saw the Lord move in such powerful ways among my group, not just in spite of the conflict, but through the conflict itself.
Then, we come to Tuesday, beautiful day, powerful night of worship, powerful teaching, and we are celebrating the end of an amazing day with ice cream! Talking with the girls, as we eat our ice cream, conflict creeps in. Long story short, conflict unintended, uninvited, and uninitiated (by me or any of the girls) creeps up out of nowhere and boom... I'm taken out-- knocked down few notches. Why were they rude? What could I have done differently? What did I miss? I immediately begin to personalize every bit of the conflict, and the Enemy begins to creep in with lies of inadequacy, insufficiency, fear, and doubt. I let the lies sink in, I retreat from the conflict, and I walk away. Walking away doesn't make the conflict go away, and, honestly, it doesn't even make me feel any better, because the conflict, regardless of what's going on, goes with me. It might not follow as an actual person, but it follows in my mind. I laid awake Tuesday night unable to shake it. It was lying in stillness and praying for a settling of my heart that I heard the Lord whisper tenderly... "Have you forgotten so quickly that I've already won the battle? Peace. Be still." And just like that, the storm calmed, the raging waves were stilled, and there was peace in my heart once again. He has defeated the giants of rejection and anxiety once and for all.
We roll on with the week, and we continue to see the Lord move in awesome ways, lives forever changed, students moving from death to life in Christ, and stories of rejection, fear, and disappointment being re-written by God every step of the way!
Thursday night, before our last session, a group of leaders from Pinelake Oxford gathered to reserve seats and pray over the students before they entered. We began to pray over our section and each chair, and, as we were praying, out of nowhere.... boom. Conflict erupted. It wasn't my conflict. It wasn't my battle to fight (or run from), but, as it raged, I became more and more uncomfortable, and I wanted to retreat even from someone else's battle. To put it simply, the end of the conflict was that we moved from our usual seats to seats higher in the arena. After moving, we circled up to continue to pray for our students, as we did, the Lord brought this quote, spoken earlier in the week, to a leader's mind, "God is most glorified when we are most unified." Whoa. What a word to speak over the conflict that had erupted. So, we unified, and we prayed with passion, with conviction, over our students. We prayed for the Lord to move in worship. We prayed for Him to move through His Word. We prayed for life change. We prayed for transformation. We prayed for chains to fall. We prayed for freedom. Finally, we prayed for each student that Pinelake Oxford brought by name. I'm not really sure how to put this in words, but I am going to do my best... Thursday night, we saw the Lord move in worship. We saw Him move through His Word. We saw life change. We saw transformation. We saw chains fall. We saw freedom. You see, it was the seats at the very top of the arena that allowed us to see the powerful work that the Lord was doing in the lives of so many students from around the country, and around the world! It was the seats at the very top of the arena that allowed us to have extra space to worship with abandon, freedom, and no limits! It was the seats at the very top of the arena that allowed me to capture these moments that will forever be in my heart!
And to think... we saw all of this happen because, instead of running and cowering in fear due to conflict, we brought it before the Lord, and, humbly, we trusted Him to fight our battle for us. We trusted that what He had in store for the night was so much bigger than which section we were sitting in or our proximity to the stage, and IT WAS. The Lord moved in section 218 Thursday night and brought freedom, salvation, and life, and I will never ever forget it.
This week was far more incredible than I could have ever imagined it would be. We met the presence of the Jesus, and we will never ever be the same. ❤️
