I am in the middle of a conflict with a friend (No, you are not getting the juicy details as that would be the very antithesis of why I am writing this, and it certainly wouldn’t help the conflict resolve, Besides, that would be hypocrisy.). It will have to suffice to say that I am persistently (likely to the point of annoyance) trying to meet with this person to resolve our conflict in the most loving way I know how… because that’s God’s priority for His church. Unity!
BE URGENT ABOUT ADDRESSING CONFLICT
So much so, that in Matthew 5:23-24, he tells us to not even give our tithes or offerings, if we know someone has an offense against us. God doesn’t want me to pretend like everything is all good between He and I, if there is something wretched between me and another one of His kids. He doesn’t want me bringing gifts to Him while scowling at my brother on my way to give it.
HUMILITY
Matthew doesn’t say, “If you have something against someone else.” It says, “if you… remember that your brother has something against you.” This sort-of flips the script. We tend to think of conflict self-centeredly (like we think of pretty much everything else). We only think of conflict when it is an offense taken and harbored in our own hearts, but this passage reminds us that we need to be aware and attentive to one another’s hearts as well. When we’ve injured someone, or perhaps they are just treating us weird and we wonder if we have offended them, it’s our personal responsibility to go to them, drenched in humility, to make certain there isn’t a crack in the wall of the Church.
In my personal conflict, it goes both ways. We both sinned against each other, and God wants it resolved! But even when I haven’t been sinned against. Or if I have only been sinned against, Humility is the remedy for all forms of conflict. Galatians 6:1 teaches that even if we are outside the conflict and we just see our brother or sister caught up in some sort of sin, we ought to go to them gently and address it… because it’s causing conflict in our brother or sister, so it’s causing conflict and disunity in the Body of Christ.
I could probably write an entire essay on this topic, but I’d like you to read it all the way through, so I am not going too deep, but I want to point out four sins that usually occur when we fail to address conflict head-on. These sins are complaining, gossiping, slandering and bitterness.
COMPLAINING:
When we are in a conflict and we avoid dealing with it, it’s often (perhaps usually) because we’d rather blame the other person than deal with our own sinful hearts with humility. We hold onto our victim card, and as long as no one else comes along to have an honest conversation about the conflict, we can keep pretending we are right and they are wrong, and all my problems are entirely someone else’s fault. Sounds stupid on paper, right? But we do it all the time. This world is so chock-full of victims, it kinda makes my stomach churn. We can’t see past our own belly buttons to see the ways we need to grow and be transformed in the midst of the conflict. Our complaining usually has two vicious outlets: gossip and slander.
GOSSIP:
This is where we go to someone else about our problem, rather than the person we actually have the problem with. Now two hearts are polluted against our “offender” (more, if that person is also a gossip, or if we gossip to multiple people, which is usually the case with gossips). We have “someone on our side” but we have caused a great breach in the wall of church unity. And this, my friends, is disgusting to God. It may seem innocent, in our imaginations, but honestly, we haven’t even given the person a chance to tell their side of the story. We certainly haven’t approached anything with humility or a willingness to grow. And now we’ve made the one, sacred Body, meant to be as unified as Christ and the Father, into two separate teams. Gossip is insidious. But what’s even worse (and we have no idea when we’re doing it, if we haven’t given our “opponent” a voice) is slander.
SLANDER:
Slander is like gossip, but dishonest. And the truth is, we’ve likely all slandered someone when we’ve failed at step one: Addressing the Conflict. Because we’ve let our version of the story of what happened become “our truth” since we didn’t want to do the hard work of having a very uncomfortable conversation. Both of these villains (gossip and slander) are rooted in pride and bitterness.
BITTERNESS:
Ah, bitterness. The thread that ties it all together. The reason we gossip, slander, blame-shift. It is also the venom that destroys the family who is the Church. Bitterness is not being hurt. It’s clinging so tightly to our wounds that they fester and become infected. Bitterness is making an idol out of our hurt.
It says in Hebrews 12:14-15 “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.”
This passage has layers of things I’d love to point out, if you will humor me. To start with, we cannot pursue peace without sometimes addressing conflict- not in this world! Secondly, notice how sanctification and the pursuit of peace are interwoven. We are sanctified through our pursuit of peace (even and especially as it comes through conflict). This sanctification that comes through pursuing peace in conflict is correlated with the grace of God! In fact, this seems to imply that we come short of the grace of God by failing to pursue peace with all men, and allowing the sanctification to take place.
And finally, cycling back to bitterness. It’s a root. And it defiles many when it springs up. Have you ever seen a patch of mint, or even better, bamboo? I have a friend who had a hideous bamboo patch in his front yard and he once told me, “Man, that stuff with spread right under your house and spring up through the middle of your living room floor!” Bamboo is invasive like bitterness is invasive! And it will spring up and stab you in the butt while you’re laying in your easy chair if you don’t deal with it by addressing the conflicts in your life.
PURSUING PEACE
To wrap this up, I want to share some perspective on conflict. And some empathy. I used to be so petrified of addressing conflict that I wouldn’t tell a waitress if they brought me the wrong meal and it was something I hated. There is a great correlation between how confident we are in Christ’s love for us, and how well we address conflict.
I still hate dealing with conflict, but I have learned over the years, how vital it is that I deal with it and deal with it swiftly. And especially that I deal with it with humility, but also sometimes confidence. Humility isn’t pretending we’re wrong when we’re right just to get out of a difficult conversation. Humility is being able to admit when we’re wrong, to dissect our hearts until we see ways we’re wrong, and then confess it to the other person (even if the other person is someone we’ve been wrong by, as well) without making excuses for our sin. Humility is caring more about our own sin than someone else’s.
Here’s what I’ve learned… Peace is not the absence of conflict. True peace often lies on the other side of conflict. As we learn to address the difficult conversations in our lives with humility and grace, God will rub some of the grime off of us and we will be more polished in the end. If I go to my friend in pride, I will do more damage than good. If my agenda is only to be heard and not to hear her hurts as well, or I only listen to respond, I will lose a sister. But if I handle it well, and she handles it well, we will have a stronger bond on the other end, and we will both be more holy and refined through the process.
A CLAUSE
There may be times when we resolve the conflict by working through it in our own hearts and prayer lives. Those are the best! But I have been guilty of using “grace” as an excuse to not actually go to the person who I have been hurt by (or whom I have hurt) because the thought of engaging in the conversation terrified me. That’s not actual grace. Grace is caring enough about the person to go have the hard conversation.
If I have been praying about the conflict, yet I just keep feeling more and more restless and unsettled about it, that’s a very good sign that God is working on me to go have that conversation… provoking me to pursue peace. Perhaps I still have some stuff I need to work out with Him before I go charging at my friend to get it over with (the objective is peace, remember?), but it’s in these times when grace looks like going to them humbly with the goal of healing and unity.
It also must be stated that even if we do everything just right: We address the conflict, we’re humble about it, we love well, etc., it doesn’t mean we are automatically going to have perfect unity with the other person. Romans 12:18 states, “so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men.” This implies that it is not entirely up to us. We are only responsible to do our part. There may be people in your life who simply want to remain in conflict.
It’s also worth noting that sometimes “so far as it depends on you” means we need to kick certain types of people out of our lives. I’m not advocating we surround ourselves with people who think we’re absolutely perfect and if anyone doesn’t fit that mold, they get excommunicated. Or that anyone who creates tension in our life gets the boot. I’m saying if someone is an abuser, you don’t keep running back for punishment. But some people are not actually abusers, they are just wounded, and we want to blame-shift all our conflicts onto them rather than being honest with ourselves about the ways we abuse them, as well (Remember part one of the four sins: Complaining… Playing the victim). Either way, if you are seeking out conflict by running after abusive relationships or abusive people, that is NOT pursuing peace. If you are running towards humility to correct all the ways you are part of the problem, that IS a pursuit of peace.
If you have done all you can to be at peace with all men, let me tell you what the surrounding verses say…
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord, ‘But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Roman 12:14-21)
IN CONCLUSION
Part of our mission on this planet is to be a peacemaker. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9). As we pursue peace, we will be refined in the process, many if not most of our relationships will be unified and strengthened through the process, but even if the person we have a conflict with doesn’t respond well, we need to bless in return, not become proud that we did our part and they didn’t, and we need to leave it up to God to defend us. And He will. He will be our Defender, as we see to walk in holiness and humility before Him. In fact, we need to seek out the blessing and well-being of the one we have a conflict with. Because ultimately, this whole conflict isn’t about you and your friend (or ex-friend). It’s about us and God and the ways He’s allowing difficulty in our lives to purify us. Ephesians 6:12 even tells us that our battle isn’t against flesh and blood. All conflicts are easier to resolve when we remember that our enemy is invisible. But sometimes he uses us like pawns to sin against each other, and it will serve us well to remember we are just as sinful as the person we have an offense against. We all so desperately need the grace of the cross!
