Carrot and Stick

How do you relate with someone who is doing, continues doing or wants to do something you do not approve of? Do you scream? Do you throw a fit? Keep a malice? Pick a fight? Do you use the carrot and stick approach - "Don't do this and get these benefits or go ahead and be ready for these repercussions"?  I'm sure somewhere, sometime we've tried all of these approaches.

The carrot and stick approach may be useful when dealing with someone you do not know or someone estranged from you, but how about someone you care about, someone you love? Does the same approach work? Can we use the American-Iranian style approach with a partner, friend or family? True love discerns a person from an action. We are all going through phases. Some mature faster in our walk with God while others grow slower. I'm ashamed of a lot mistakes from my past but through it all God's love has been there for me - not excusing my actions but loving me. It is time to show such love that comes from experience to someone else who needs it.

As we go, let use learn to say I do not like or support your action on this but I love you. Let us lovingly correct much more than we religiously criticize. Pray for the person to change much more than you tell the person to change. And in closing let me leave with this famous verse from 1st Corinthians 13: 4-10 (The Message) -

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,  Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.