I consider this post to be a special treat.
Every Christ-following family has “house rules”. Those rules reflect the character and values of the parents, as they seek to be an example and raise their children up as other-centered lovers of people. God has given us “house rule” in His word for how He wants us, his children, to relate with one another. And while it is one thing to read and think theoretically about those “house rules” which are recorded in the bible, it is another thing altogether to see examples of what it takes to follow those principles lived out in real life.
One example that I’ve been aware of for a few years comes from the Brad & Annette Barrett family. They established a “house rule” for their family which gives us a look at how to practically put “brotherly love” into practice. I’ve heard the oldest two (Amy and Jenna) of their four daughters both refer to this particular practice as something positive in their life that has helped them learn to get along with people – even hard to love people. It must work – Amy and Jenna have now lived together almost an entire school year without bloodshed.
Here it is for you – in the words of Amy Barrett. Think about what she says. There is way too much drama and unfinished business floating around in our midst. In order to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”, we must make the tough-but-Christ-pleasing choice to resolve all of our conflicts in a timely fashion. Thank you, Amy, for sharing this with us.
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The “Barrett Standard”
Growing up with three sisters you can imagine that there was a lot of fighting. I fought constantly with my sister who is two years younger than I am. We were always arguing about something, taking something that wasn’t ours, or just picking a fight because we were bored.
Even now, when we are both out of our teen years and living together with a couple of roommates, we still fight. The coolest thing about our relationship is that even when we do fight, we know how to resolve it. We may be really mad at each other, but usually within ten minutes one of us has apologized to the other and asked for forgiveness. I don’t think we would do that if we hadn’t been trained early by our parents in conflict resolution.
My parents based their instruction on this verse: “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam, so drop the matter before the dispute breaks out.” Proverbs 17:14
Any time we were fighting and took it to our parents they would ask us these questions:
- Did you work it out peacefully?
- Did you drop the matter?
- Did you bring it to mom or dad?
The answers were usually “no,” so they would tell us to go back and choose one of the three options. We usually worked it out ourselves, because bringing it to our parents would usually mean that they would make us do something for our sister. They based this on Romans 12:21—“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
After we had resolved the issue we would have to choose something nice to do for our sister—doing one of her chores, letting her use something of yours, etc. The idea was that when you are serving someone and sacrificing for them it is a lot harder to be mad at them.
All these principles have been really important to me as I have grown up—I’ve learned that sitting on a problem doesn’t make it any better—you either need to work it out with that person, drop it, and/or bring it to God, and see what he would have you do.
Another great, but really hard, way to learn to love those people you don’t really like is to pray for their success and to serve them. I’ve seen my heart change for people—it’s hard to be mad at someone when you are praying that God will bless them and make them successful.
Those three little “rules” that my parents taught us growing up have been invaluable to me—they look different now than when I was six and fighting about a doll with my sister, but learning to resolve conflicts is one of our basic skills—and we need to know how to do it.
