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Day Five
Day Five // March 2 // The Roots of Discord
“Small communities grow great through harmony; great ones fall to pieces through discord.” – Sallust –
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One of the most exquisite gifts the Spirit offers is peace. When we do not know the things that make for peace, we are left with rancor and discord. Discord is that place where we experience a stifling lack of agreement or harmony; and, at its worst, that place where it raises its ugly head to derail the mission and purpose that God has for our lives. Winston Churchill made an insightful comment in the midst of a debate: “Must we fall into the jabber and babel of discord while victory is still unattained?”
Healthy debate and disagreement is not discord. Discussion without the quest for peace is, for it sows the worldly seeds of conflict.
Discord grows when we focus on the wrong values. A wife was in an automobile accident one day. She phoned her husband and immediately he asked, “How much damage did it do to the car? Whose fault was it?” Then he issued this guidance: “Don’t admit to anything. Tell the policeman that you have nothing to say until you talk with your attorney. I will call the insurance company.” Then she asked rather testily, “Have you got anything else to say?” “No,” he replied. “Well,” she said, “just in case you’re interested, I am in the hospital with five broken ribs.” Instantly we see, that in the panic of the moment, the husband forgot the main thing. His first question should have been, “Honey, how are you?” Discord can also grow when we avoid our emotions. When we don’t work through our anger, when we avoid healthy conversations, we can live like a volcano bubbling under the surface, just waiting to erupt. Dr. Harriett Lerner of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas says “our anger may be a message that we are being hurt, that our rights are being violated, that our needs are not being adequately met, or simply that something is not right. Anger deserves our attention.”
Lent draws into an honest evaluation of our lives. Do we have issues that need addressing? Are there some honest conversations that we have put off? Have we, in a desire for “superficial peace,” unintentionally allowed discord to fester, keeping us from God’s best?
