There’s a little poem I’ve heard that describes life in the church, and it emphasizes the difference between life in heaven and life on earth. It goes like this—“Living above with saints we love, oh that will be glory; Living below with saints we know, well, that’s a different story.” That is a sad but true commentary on living life together as Christians, isn’t it? We’re kind of like a bunch of porcupines walking around with our quills stuck out, and every so often we bump into each other and cause some hurt and pain.
But this reality isn’t just limited to life in the church, is it? This is true of every part of our lives. Conflicts, disagreements, fights, feuds—these things are all just part of relationships in our fallen world, whether you’re talking about friends, family members, church members, book club members, sports teams, booster clubs, co-workers, the ladies in the quilting society or the good ol’ boys over at the Elks Lodge! Wherever you have two people interacting with each other, you have the potential for conflict.
I’m sure we’ve all lived through some conflicts that were handled well, and some that we’re not handled so well, and perhaps you’re still living through the fall-out from a conflict that blew up on you. So how can we end up in that first category? How can we do our part to handle our conflicts in a godly way? Conflicts are going to come, and they’re not necessarily bad things in our lives if we handle them in the right way.
Today we’ll look at what Proverbs has to say about this, and we’ll answer this question together:
How should we respond to conflict with others?
I. Resolve the Conflict as Soon as Possible (17:14)
The best time to resolve a conflict is immediately—before it puts down roots, before it blows up and takes on a life of its own. Look at Prov. 17:14 [READ 17:14]. The picture in this verse is of some kind of container that springs a leak. That kind of problem will never get better on its own—it will only get worse until its solved. In our day and age, we can think of dam that starts to fail. The whole thing might be destroyed if the problem isn’t addressed immediately. Allowing a conflict to remain unresolved is like allowing a wound to remain exposed to the elements—there is a great risk that it will become infected and get even worse. Conflicts have a way of getting worse even if we’re not trying to make them worse! For example, many times we deal with conflict by simply ending our relationship with the other person. Sometimes we announce this to them and everyone, but more often we don’t. We simply stop talking to the other person, and thus we think we have kept the conflict from getting worse. Sometimes we even pat ourselves on the back at this point and say, “Well, its sad that the relationship had to end, but at least we’re not fighting anymore!”
But sooner or later, the people around that relationship start to notice, and they may start to talk, and that talk may turn to gossip, and that gossip may lead to people taking sides, and before long a whole family or a whole church is destroyed by the weeds of a conflict that we thought we had buried. So we must deal with conflict through confession, repentance, and forgiveness, and we must do it right away before it gets any worse.
II. Realize the Folly of Having a Quick Temper (12:16, 14:29, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 29:11, 25:28)
Many conflicts get worse in a hurry because one person or both people lose their temper. Some kind of conflict comes up and its like a match fell into a powder keg because someone loses their cool and blows up. According to Proverbs, this is an extremely foolish way to respond to conflict. You might be surprised at how often Proverbs talks about this. Look at some verses with me [READ 12:16, 14:29, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 29:11, 25:28].
I want to talk about that last verse for a moment. In those days, every moderately-sized city had a wall around it to protect it from attacks. If its wall was broken down, it would be vulnerable and defenseless. So the picture from this verse is that if you can’t control yourself, you are vulnerable to attacks from temptation. You are easy prey for Satan because you don’t have the proper defenses in place.
Sometimes we try to play down our responsibility for our tempers or shift the blame to others. We might say that we just can’t control ourselves or that other people “shouldn’t be so sensitive.” A lady once came to evangelist Billy Sunday and tried to rationalize her angry outbursts. “There’s nothing wrong with losing my temper,” She said. “I blow up, and then it’s all over.”
“So does a shotgun,” Sunday replied, “and look at the damage it leaves behind!”1 We can try to downplay angry outbursts all we want, but the reality is that they do tremendous damage.
So what should you do if your temper is out of control? First, you need to ask for forgiveness from people that you’ve blown up on in the past. Whether that’s your wife, your kids, or your co-workers, they need to know that you acknowledge that what you did to them was wrong. Second, you need to realize that controlling your temper will only happen as you grow spiritually. That is a process that must start today, before you face any other conflicts. There really aren’t any tricks or techniques that are going to save you in the heat of the moment. You’ve got to build up the walls around your soul, so you’re no longer vulnerable to that temptation. Galatians 5:23 says that the Holy Spirit will produce self-control in our lives, but we must walk by the Spirit. We must live in dependence on the Holy Spirit to help us make our choices and to help us learn how to think about life and how to respond in godly ways. Then we can avoid making conflicts worse by blowing up when we face them.
III. Respond with Love, not Hatred (10:12, 25:21–22)
Proverbs 10:12 says, [READ 10:12]. If we allow hatred to enter our hearts and fester there during a conflict, it will only make things worse. Our focus will be on destroying the other person rather than reconciling with them. Instead, we must respond with love, because love seeks to put the matter to rest rather than stir it up and make it worse. Love makes us willing to confess our sins if we have done wrong, and it makes us willing to offer forgiveness if someone else has wronged us.
In his great description of love in 1 Cor. 13, the apostle Paul says that love is kind, and Proverbs offers a great illustration of this kindness in Prov. 25 [READ 25:21–22]. Love does not respond by attacking an enemy or by taking advantage of his weaknesses; rather, it responds with displays of kindness. The picture of heaping burning coals on your enemy’s head speaks of the shame and conviction in a person’s conscience which could be stirred up by such acts of kindness.
So love asks the question, “How can I put this matter to rest?” Instead of adding fuel to the fires of conflict, love seeks to starve the flames so that they will be extinguished.
IV. Watch Your Words (15:1, 17:27)
It’s so easy to let your mouth run wild during a conflict, but that will only make matters worse. Here’s what we should do instead [READ 15:1, 17:27]. Notice that that last verse ties our words together with something else we just talked about—keeping your temper under control. Those careless things that we say when we lose our temper can be the most painful part of a conflict. Sometimes they can take on a life of their own and overshadow the original problem! We can forget what we were even fighting about in the first place. Our words are like the winds that turn a campfire into a forest fire.
There are all kinds of ways that we can make a conflict worse with the things we say. We can attack a person’s character, their intelligence, their motives, even their upbringing (“You’re just like your mother!). We can exaggerate their faults and minimize our own; we can even generalize their faults with statements like “You always act this way!” or “You’re never going to change.”
This can be another area where we think to ourselves, “People just need to stop being so sensitive. They just need to realize that I don’t mean these things that I say. I’m just letting off some steam.” Friends, we can’t put the blame on other people for taking offense at the things we say. The problem is ours, not theirs. And we need to remember that everything we say comes from the heart, so every word that we speak is an expression of our true feelings. So when we say these cruel things, its because deep down inside we really do mean them! We might embellish them or exaggerate in the heat of the moment, but all of these hurtful things we say contain at least a kernel of our true feelings. That’s why they are so hurtful; they’re not just empty words! They are the fruit of a root that reaches into the heart.
V. Don’t Launch a “Cold War” Against the Other Person (10:18)
Do you know what I mean by this? I’m talking about those situations where you refuse to talk to someone else, or you may talk to them but you refuse to admit that anything is wrong. Look with me at Prov. 10:18 [READ 10:18]. These verse talks about two activities. The first is when you conceal your hatred for someone by the things you say to them. Maybe you flatter them or you just act like nothing is wrong. That’s what I mean by a “cold war”—you’re not openly expressing your hatred to the other person, but you’re still hostile toward them even if you won’t talk to them about it.
The second activity in this verse is uttering slander. Basically we’re talking about gossip here. Sometimes we’re not willing to talk to the person we actually have a problem with, but we’re more than willing to talk to everyone else about it! Gossip is another way of indirectly attacking someone. We may not be calling the person names to their face, but we’re trying to get everyone else to share our feelings toward them.
I hope its obvious that neither of these activities constitute a healthy way of dealing with conflict. We can so easily fool ourselves into thinking that this is a better way to handle conflict, but the simple fact that you’re not openly fighting with someone else doesn’t mean anything. The United States and Russia never technically fought a battle during the Cold War, but no one would say we were on friendly terms. We cannot openly or secretly harbor hatred for someone else if we want to have any hope of reconciling with them.
VI. Remember How Hard it Can Be to Undo the Effects of a Fight (18:19)
A poorly handled conflict can stay with you for the rest of your life. Prov. 18:19 says, [READ 18:19]. This proverb is so honest. God does not want us to harbor grudges against each other, but sometimes, that’s exactly what happens, and those grudges can be very hard to overcome. How many times have we seen families permanently divided over a poorly-handled conflict? Or church members separate forever over a petty issue that exploded?
The devotional book Our Daily Bread once recorded the last will and testament of a man who carried a grudge against his daughters to the grave. It read, “Unto my two daughters…by reason of their rebellious attitude toward a loving father, …I leave the sum of $1 to each and a father’s curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering, malignant and torturous nature. May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for eternity.”2
How terrible it is to read those words, but that kind of soul-polluting hatred can be the end result of a poorly-handled conflict. Conflicts don’t have to end up that way; they don’t have to blow up or result in hatred and estrangement. But if we’re going to bring a positive outcome out of a conflict, we have to follow God’s principles. We have to do things God’s way, and as you can see with some of these principles, we have to work on these things now, before conflicts come up. So let’s ask the Lord to carve these principles into our hearts so that we will be ready the next time a conflict comes up.
1. From http://bible.org/illustration/anger-shotgun Accessed 3/23/11
2. Our Daily Bread, February 18, 1994, as recorded at http://bible.org/illustration/father%E2%80%99s-will Accessed 3/23/11
No comments:
Post a Comment