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
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