Elder Niran was furious. How dare the pastor say those things? Niran realized that he had done a few things wrong at church, but there was no reason for Pastor Kasem to talk about them at the elders’ meeting. I’ll show him, he thought.

Immediately Elder Niran hopped on his motor scooter and went to visit a highly respected elder at the other church in town. As they were chatting, Elder Niran dropped a few comments about how disappointed he was with Pastor Kasem. “It’s a pity you aren’t part of our church, my friend,” said the other elder. “Pastor Kasem doesn’t show proper respect for older people. He thinks that he knows everything because he graduated from Bible seminary. If you were part of our church, I know that you would teach him the proper way to talk and show respect.”

As he drove home, Elder Niran smiled grimly. He won’t do that to me again, he vowed to himself.

Before long, the gossip had spread throughout both churches in town. Pastor Kasem suddenly found that many of the Christians in town were not greeting him as enthusiastically as they usually would. Some—even those from the other church in town—had even frowned at him. (Very shocking!) But even worse, the usually peaceful Christians were now arguing about all sorts of things.

Elder Niran walked into church with the same stiff smile that Sunday. Half of the church greeted him with sympathy. Obviously, Pastor Kasem had been treating him poorly. The other half of the church didn’t think the gossip that they had heard was true, but they were afraid of being told off by the louder members of the church. That day, Pastor Kasem preached to a church divided. The church members smiled as all Thais do, but it was a smile of conflict. A potential split loomed its ugly shadow over the church body.

Two weeks later, though, a prayer counseling seminar was held – organized by a missionary and some of the Christians in the area. Participants learned about the way that God uses his Holy Spirit to heal deep wounds, release people from stubborn sins, and remove the work of evil spirits. Elder Niran thought it would be another good place to show his depth of spirituality. But as the seminar went on, the Holy Spirit began to convict him of what he had been doing.

When it came time for Elder Niran’s session with two from the prayer counseling team, they prayed for him and encouraged him to listen to what the Holy Spirit was saying to him. He couldn’t hold onto his pride anymore, and he confessed his sins to God.

On the last day, as each participant had an opportunity to share something that God had done for them, Elder Niran rose and knelt in front of Pastor Kasem. He begged that the pastor forgive him for the things he had done that had hurt Pastor Kasem. Tears flowed as the pastor forgave him. God turned enmity into peace and healed the hurt caused by the offense.