Loving Conflict

A general theme I have been dealing with in the last few weeks, within myself and with others, has been the theme of conflict.  In general, the problem is that some believe conflict can be avoided and, or conflict is destructive.  Neither have to be true.

This past week, I met with a few men and one of the men confessed he sometimes lied to his wife to avoid the conflict.  Every man there admitted he often failed to share certain things with his spouse for that very same reason.  It prompted me to go home immediately after the meeting to talk to my wife about some things I had been avoiding myself.

I continued to observe this theme in several sessions of marital counseling the rest of the week.  By and large, many feel this way about conflict.  When did we become this way and why is it wrong?

Once again, I had to look at myself and examine my own heart.  I realized that my experience of conflict growing up was that it was destructive.  It was frightening and often led to unwanted results.  I recognized that I have a tendency to avoid conflict and to be overly careful with the use of confrontation, even as a counselor or spiritual director.

A friend of mine once told me how he had become aware of a flaw in his own character and confessed it to some friends in a small group setting.  One of the members of the group stated he knew it was a problem and was glad my friend had come to realize it.  Rather than hearing what he probably expected, my friend asked him, “How long were you going to allow me to remain in my sin before you said something?”

In Scripture we are told we will be held accountable, not only for our actions, but for our careless words (Matt. 12:36-37), and for what we didn’t do that should have been done.  James writes (4:17), “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  Jesus tells us the right thing to do is to rebuke a brother who sins (Luke17:3), “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault (Matt. 18:15).”

“Confrontation is a loving and appropriate challenge.  It’s not pointing a finger at sin.  It’s pointing to the truth that sets us free (HopefortheHeart.org).”  We cannot leave our brothers and sisters in Christ in their sin, and hopefully they won’t leave us in ours.  In my next blog, I will provide some tips on how to handle confrontation in the manner Jesus intended.  But for now, notice how you tend to avoid conflict and why that may be true for you.

Godspeed, Phil