Privately addressing problems

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or tax collector.” Matthew 18:15-17

The Bible tells us that if we have a problem with a fellow believer if they have sinned against us that we are suppose to first confront them privately just between the two of you, it isn’t until after you have attempted to confront them privately and then with a few witnesses that you should make your problem public.

Does this apply to our children too? So if someone’s child does something to harm your child shouldn’t you first go to that child’s parents with the issue and give them a chance to handle the situation and discipline their child?

With modern technology people can send and receive information in a matter of seconds and with this people have begun to vent their feelings publicly online. There are so many problems with this- one of them being that people no longer take the time to privately discuss their problems before they make them public. This causes hurt feelings and strained relationships, whether you name the person or not, especially when you post it somewhere that they can see it and you plan on confronting them about it later.

I am guilty of this myself; I often post things about my stepdaughter’s mother out of anger or strife because she has hurt my stepdaughter. Many times I realize it and quickly delete them and I always make sure that her and her children are unable to see them. Does this make it ok? I now know that it does not. I have tried to talk to her privately, we have even gone in front of a judge to try to resolve the issues- he told her she was wrong by only allowing her supervised visitation and she still feels that she has/is doing nothing wrong and justifies it. I feel like the only thing I have left to do is to vent my feelings so that I can deal with them and move on. Sometimes I need support from some of my friends (especially the ones who are in the same situation) in helping me to process the feelings but there are places to vent and seek help and guidance and places not to.

I need to try to work on dealing with my problems in the right place and to think about what I post before I post it… will you do the same? If someone has sinned against you or hurt you then first go to them and try to solve the problem, if that doesn't work then go to other people for help, guidance and support.