“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.” Philippians 4:5
The situations where we are called to live out our faith and develop our life’s purpose can be the very places that seem to be sucking the life out of us. People conflicts can make us feel hopeless. Here is a strategy I am trying hard to use in my own life. Pray for me, some days I stink at it.

1. STOP BLAMING AND START COLLABORATING
Families, churches, and companies all tend to hyper focus on finding the one person or one group of people who are the source of trouble when things get stormy. The next step is to assign blame and change or eliminate that person or group. Great leaders bring everyone together to solve the problem instead of merely thinking that changing or getting rid of one person or group will make things peaceful. The stupidity of “Deflategate” is that it avoids the real problem, which is that the National Football League, the Players Association, and the teams aren’t working together very well right now.

2. STOP BLOWING UP AND START CALMING DOWN
Anger can be really good, when the expression of it is used to make yourself vulnerable and let another person know how you deeply feel. High anxiety is a normal reaction to bad news, but the decision to quickly soften is critical to progress. When anger & hysteria are hammers to bend others to our will it is toxic and will never permanently bring a situation out of crisis. When people feel you are blowing up or clamming up to force your solutions on them, they will naturally resist and sabotage your efforts to bring change. “Calmness brings clarity.”(Clamming up is just a passive way of blowing up.)

3. STOP BULLYING AND START CONNECTING
As bullies, we go around isolating people and making them “wrong” so we can get that reassuring “everything’s under control” feeling. One reason Mafia crime families always implode is becaue killing all companions who hinder progress isn’t a sustainable approach to team building. Ever notice how Jesus drew crowds and made them feel he cared for them. Families and churches have a bad habit of ganging up on the “cause of their problems.” This is NOT helpful. What is helpful is for everyone is to come together and ask “how can WE do better.” At the end of they day healthy teams do have to let people go, but collaborate, calm and connect first. A collaborating, calm and connected organizational system can handle the trauma of transitions.

Scriptures for further study: Acts 15:1-30; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 5:21-25