Prayer, faith, and healing : cure your body, heal your mind, and restore your soul by Kenneth Winston Caine & Brian Paul Kaufman

Author:Kenneth Winston Caine & Brian Paul Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: © 1999 by Rodale Inc.
Published: 1999-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

But the Bible doesn’t just tell us that we should be reconciled with our enemies; it tells us how to do it. Here’s a step-by-step guide to letting the healing begin.

Get the heart ready. One of the best ways to prepare for reconciliation is to make sure that we’re not harboring resentment, unforgiveness, or similar sins in our lives. After all, they’re what that wall of hate is made of in the first place. “If I were in this situation, I’d simply say, ‘Dear God, please show me how I have wronged my neighbor. Please help me forgive him for the hurt that he has caused me. Please remove my anger toward him. Please help me reach out to him in appropriate ways,” says Dr. Poe.

Go alone. There’s probably no lonelier walk than the one to the front door of someone with whom we’re angry. But there are good reasons why we should take these steps alone. Among them, the Bible says: “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” (Matthew 18:15 NKJV)

“Going in private is to our benefit,” says Fifer. “We may not have the facts right or we might have misunderstood something, and that could be very embarrassing if we brought it up in front of a group of people and then found out that we’re in error.”

Go for it. We’re face-to-face with someone we haven’t seen eye-to-eye with for a long time. If appropriate, and as hard as it may be, we should probably start the conversation by owning up to our share of the problem. “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16 NKJV)

Here’s one possible introduction: “I just want to tell you that I’m troubled by the condition of our relationship and want to take responsibility for my part of the problem.” From there, we need to apologize and ask forgiveness for specifics: “I’m sorry that I gossiped about your personal problems. Will you forgive me?” Or “I never should have taken your idea without giving you credit for it. I was greedy and I’m sorry.”

“The goal isn’t to rebuke them, make them feel like a worm, or make yourself look like a saint. The goal is to restore that person to fellowship. And by confessing our mistakes, it opens the door for them to do that, too,” says Fifer.

Be patient. “It’s difficult when people feel passionate about how they have been wronged,” explains the Reverend Terry Wise, Ph.D., director of the Trinity Center for Conflict Management at Trinity Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana, and author of Conflict Scenarios. “You can’t say, ‘Okay, Mary, you have to forgive me—and do it right now.’ Sometimes you have to let people vent. But in the end, when they feel like there’s been some movement and they open up and begin to see that they’ve been viewing the conflict

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