non-confrontational

I have found myself in a situation as of late, that will probably require me to confront someone in the near future. I was talking about the situation to a concerned outside party and she asked why I had never dealt with this issue before. I found myself saying several times, "I'm just not confrontational." Thinking about it later, I've realized we use that phrase quite often, and a.) we use it as a cop out to avoid an unpleasant situation that we are perfectly capable of handling, and b.) God did not intend confrontation to be a bad thing, and yet we have made it that way. Funny how good we are at screwing up things that God intended for good.

I've been reading through a book by Paul David Tripp called "Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change" and the author talks some about confrontation, and how it was intended to be. Confrontation was supposed to be a way for people to come to each other, in love, and point out something that the one person may be missing.
It was not intended to be a "I'm better than you and here's what you're doing wrong" situation.
Nor was it intended to be a "You've hurt me and now you need to apologize and make up for it" situation.
It is not something used to lift yourself up or put the other person down. On the contrary, confrontation needs to occur because this person has a heart issue that needs dealt with, but not by you. Rather the issue needs to be dealt with between this person and the Lord. They have fallen away, they have taken a misstep, and because you care about their spiritual well being, you have brought it to their attention. The issue shouldn't be that you've been hurt by someone and they need to realize it and fix it with you, but rather,

they need to get right with God.

In addition, confrontation was not meant to be something that happens once in a blue moon after an issue has built up and festered. Ideally, confrontation needs to be a daily occurrence. We are supposed to be keeping each other accountable as fellows Christ-followers, and this should be something we are always helping each other with. So if we see someone taking a misstep, it is our responsibility to make them aware of it when they are not. And if this confrontation were happening on a daily basis, we would not dread it near as much as we do now.
Now I will be the first to admit that I am as guilty of this incorrect confrontational style as the next person. And when I read that section out of the book, it really made sense to me, but I had yet to actually apply it. And now, when I am being faced with an unpleasant confrontation, those pages from the book come to mind, and I think how this situation might have been different had I been confronting it from the beginning.
Oh if only it were as simple as flipping a switch and suddenly I could be confronting people correctly all the time! But it is not that simple.

God likes to grow and stretch us.

He wants us to learn from our mistakes.

We can't just sleep on the Bible and learn everything by osmosis.

We are relational beings. God made us that way. But that being the case, we have to learn how to relate to one another correctly. The way God intended.

It won't be easy.
It definitely won't be pretty.
But imagine how much more we could glorify God if we confronted people the way He wanted, without shouting and anger, without tears and hurt feelings.
I hope to see God in more and more of my confrontations.