““To actually make peace, where open wrong, hostility, and destruction now operate, is the hardest and best work in the world. It involves saying true words that some people might not like to hear: “That’s wrong. Let’s solve it.” It involves confronting evils, rescuing victims, calling wrongdoers to accountability: “You can’t treat people that way.” It involves anger on behalf of victims and to the face of victimizers. But such merciful anger always maintains its sense of proportion, its perspective, and its constructive purpose. The process of problem-solving, of peacemaking—of making right what is wrong—is often long and hard. It takes honesty. It’s almost always complicated and uncomfortable. You’ll need patience yet again. You’ll need to forgive again. You’ll need more charity. You’ll need to check your attitudes, words, and actions. You’ll need the Holy Spirit to mediate the mercy and strength of Christ in order for you to do it in some semblance of the right way. You will often need forgiveness yourself as you stumble in your peacemaking. When you fail to be merciful as your Father in heaven has been merciful to you in Christ, you will have to call out for mercy from above. And yet you’ll continue to pursue the constructive conflict with darkness because that is the way redemption is accomplished.””
