Relationship conference

Steve and I had the pleasure of attending a marriage conference at our church this weekend. Actually, it was less specific to marriage, and more about relationships in general, since it focused on attitudes, communication, conflict, and forgiveness. Dr. Tim Lane, of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF), was the speaker. I started to write on this blog a list of all the things that we either learned or were reminded of, but it was going to be too much, so here are a few highlights:

1. Relationships exist to glorify God by helping us to grow in grace (not to make us happy); it is through interaction with others that we realize how much we are in need of God's grace.
2. Being dishonest includes failing to address a problem, and saying you are okay when you really aren't; however, there is a difference between being honest and being critical.
3. Gentleness is saying something encouraging at least five times more often than saying something critical.
4. If you have a hard time taming your tongue, the only effective cure is to praise God (you cannot simultaneously praise God and offend Him).
5. Conflict arises when we have unmet desires that are more important to us than glorifying God; we must constantly be pushing down these idols in order to avoid conflict (examples of common idols include comfort/happiness and order/control, which are not bad in and of themselves, but are bad when they are the most important things to us).
6. Forgiveness is both an event and an ongoing process.
7. We fail to be conduits of God's grace when we cut ourselves off from the grace that we ourselves need. This includes believing that we don't need to be forgiven ("I would never do what that person did!"); believing that we are unforgiveable; and losing amazement at God's grace toward us.
8. We need to be accountable to other Christians for our words and actions to help us grow in grace.