Conflict--->Change

Have you ever read one of those excessively happy books? You know, the ones that give you the same feeling you have after you eat both the cotton candy and the funnel cake at the state fair? The plot in this story is a series of happy events. The conflict is a choice between two equally happy events. It’s riveting, right?

Wrong. Apart from being humorous in its unrealistic absurdity, it’s pointless because nothing happens. What the story lacks is real conflict. Conflict produces change.

This is true in our life stories too. The Author of Life wants to see us change. He doesn’t want us to ignore hardships and pressures and tragedies; He wants to integrate them into our stories. He uses them to point us and others to the theme: redemption. Conflict in this life, a result of the sin of humanity, points to our need for freedom from that sin's bondage. The resolution to this conflict is Jesus Christ. His plan of redemption is offered to all who will take hold of it. Conflict produces change.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Phillipians 1:6

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Ephesians 1:7-10