True or false: “Conflict is a good thing in marriage.”
It’s a question I almost always discuss with a couple before I’ll perform their wedding. How would you answer it?
How we answer a question like this says something important about whether we’ll avoid conflict or address it. You could ask the same question about your workplace, or your church.
True or false: “Conflict is a good thing.” What’s your answer?
How we answer this question will prove to have a profound impact on how we manage the Life Together that has been the focus of all these weeks of our #FourFoolishRules series. We’ve considered some basic rules that connect to our life together in families, workplaces, churches, and more. If you’ve been following along, you must have known that eventually we’d have to talk about the messes.
It’s hard to spend much time with other human beings before we find ourselves in a mess. Something gets spilled. Someone takes offense. We end up with our foot in our mouth, or they do. Often it’s a misunderstanding. Sometimes it’s a matter of real and lasting harm that we do to one another as we try to do life together, or alongside one another.
Even Jesus knew we’d end up in conflict, even within the church. He gave us some guidance for just this situation, in Matthew 18.15-20, which I discussed at length in chapter 5 of my book Foolish Church. You can look up the Scripture; here’s my summary of Jesus’ basic instruction for what to do when someone hurts us by their words, deeds or actions:
- Talk to them. Not about them. Not around them. Pull them aside and say what happened, directly and to the point. If they listen to you, and there’s restoration of the relationship, then that’s a success, and the issue is done.
- If 1 doesn’t bring resolution: Bring one or two others into the conversation. When someone else is sitting there, it probably changes how you and the other person talk about what happened. A little more time has passed. You’ve got some outside ears and eyes in the room. You each might speak with a little more care, somewhat less exaggeration, and greater clarity on details the additional person or people might ask about. If in the course of this conversation there is reconciliation between you and that other person, then that’s a success, and the issue is done.
- If 1 and 2 don’t bring resolution: Bring the issue before the church,* and have the conversation again. The greater gravity and additional bodies in this setting will often help bring resolution. More ears and eyes are accompanied by different perspectives and, sometimes, more creative ideas toward reconciliation. If in the course of this conversation there is reconciliation, then that’s a success, and the issue is done.
- And if 1, 2 and 3 don’t bring resolution: Then that person who hurt you may not be able to remain in the inner circle of the church.* This doesn’t mean they’re hated and demonized. Jesus says they’re to be “as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Jesus remained in ministry and at table with persons like these. But for now, they might be outside the bounds of the church.*
*You’ll notice, Jesus is talking about the church here. That’s a specific focus that’s different from the “life together” we’ve generally been talking about in this series. Where he is focusing on the church, we can apply his wisdom more broadly. Instead of bringing the issue before “the church,” we might connect at that third level with a therapist or a group of close friends or family members. Who in your life offers good counsel consistently and unflinchingly? That person, or that circle of friends, might be the focus of that third step where you seek resolution and perhaps discern the need to separate yourself if that cannot be reached.
This “Matthew 18 process” is good advice. It’s incredibly simple and stubbornly difficult. It’s not easy for us to talk first to the person who has annoyed or wronged us. We don’t want to rehearse that conversation–that injury–one more time. Airing our dirty laundry feels messy, and vulnerable, and (we hope) unnecessary.
But the alternative is, well, laundry that stays dirty! It’s messes that congeal and harden and corrupt the surfaces they touch. Our fear of them preserves them. Our unwillingness to trust Jesus’ good words and sound direction keeps us locked in pain. “Oh, well,” we might say. “Guess I can’t count on anything better.” We lower our expectations and go on with our Life Together–only a little worse, a little rockier, a lot less hopeful.
So, back to the question I started with:
True or false: Conflict is a good thing in marriage, or with family members, or coworkers, or church friends.
When we’d compare the bride’s answer with the groom’s answer to that question, it wasn’t unusual for one of them to have said “True” while the other said “False.” As you could imagine, conversation would ensue, the gist of which I’ll summarize here:
Conflict happens.
Both partners will experience feelings which, if expressed, will lead to conflict.
If either of you is not expressing your share of the natural conflict of life together, then one of two things must be true:
You no longer care enough to deal with it. That person has checked out. They’ve given up on the original promise of the relationship.
OR
It’s not safe for you to deal with it, or at least it seems that way to you. The other may express their wishes, frequently and loudly. But when one of you stops doing so, it’s a huge red flag.
Is conflict a good thing in a relationship? Any relationship that’s real will involve conflict, some of the time. Conflict is an invitation to do the hard work–sometimes excruciating, but always significant–of seeking resolution and restoration. Much of the time, it truly is possible. When it is, it’s so worth the risk to get there.
In the words of psalmist (Psalm 133):
1How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
2It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.
3It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.
Go, now, and clean up some messes. What startling joy.
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