Right now at The Chapel we are in the middle of a series called “Disconnected”, looking at the things that keep us from having healthy, vibrant, God pleasing relationships.  There are so many things that fall into that category but this past Sunday we talked about one, that I am convinced, is at the core of all the things that cause problems in relationships – PRIDE.

Pride: the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance.

One of the greatest places our excessively high opinion of ourselves shows up is in our need to be right all the time. This morning I read a blog post by Pete Wilson that was a great reminder of the damage our need to be right can cause in relationships.  I would encourage you to read it - here.

James says:

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. James 3:13

In that, I believe James is saying that we have to exchange our wisdom for God’s wisdom and then we can bring humility to our relationships.

I shared in my message that there are 3 things that I am trying to do when I feel pressure to defend my position and be right welling up in me, it was to STOP, DROP and ROLL.

STOP! Don’t say whatever it was that I was going to say next.

DROP to my knees and ask God to give me his wisdom in the situation (you don’t have to do this literally but sometimes it might help!).

and

ROLL with whatever God chooses to do next.

It takes faith, it takes self-control but I have found a couple things happen when I do…

1. My ability to listen goes up dramatically!

2. My desire to see what’s best for the person grows dramatically!

Have you had a chance to try Stop, Drop and Roll?  How did it go?