Compromise is Key

By:

Emily Miller

It is a word that is becoming lost in today's society.

We have such a collective need to prove that we are right (maybe even more so for us ladies), that we forget that other people may not always think like us.

Sometimes you have to step away from your own viewpoint for a moment. Realize that you are not always right. There may be times where you and the other person BOTH may be right, as you both have good valid arguments on an issue.

When it comes to arguments like this, you have to agree to find some sort of a middle ground for someone. Be willing to compromise. Make concessions to the other side without compromising the values you hold.

It is more difficult than it sounds.

The rhetoric you utilize in your argument is also key. There are certain words or phrases, no matter how minor the issue may seem to you, that WILL trigger the other person into backing into a defensive mode. When you use words like this, nothing will get done. All you will end up doing is sitting in your opposite corners, hurling insults and accusations at each other. 

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

-James 1:19-20

Even after you try to sit down and have a mutual, constructive discussion, all you may end up doing is agreeing to disagree. You have to respect the other person's right to do so without accusing them of being wrong, as this following passage of scripture suggests;

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.  One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.  Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.  For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

-Romans 14:1-12

I think the passage above sums up the very idea of compromise beautifully. We all can have differences of opinion, but in the end, the only thing that REALLY matters, that we are ALL defined in Christ alone.

Blessings,

Emily

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