19 Aug 2010
Step One: What’s really going on?
What is this fight actually about?
The Devil’s main weapon against us are lies that cause division.
As I said yesterday, conflict isn’t a bad thing, in fact the absence of conflict can sometimes be like a cancer. Napoleon Bonaparte said:
“The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.”
Proverbs 27:17 says:
As iron sharpens iron,so one man sharpens another.
I love this picture because the only way for iron to sharpen iron is for friction to wear away the part that is blunt. Conflict helps sharpen me.
But it is important to step back from conflict and work out what is actually going on.
Too often when I am angry or I fight it is because my feelings are hurt. Hurt feelings are not a reason for conflict.
In a previous post I spoke about “The Glory of God“ and it’s place in understanding relationships.
The first step to constructive conflict is the application of the framework of the Glory of God to name what the real issues in this conflict are.
- Has there been an injustice?
- Are people not seeing things from the point of view of the other?
- Are people not caring?
By applying the framework of questions like these, the first step is to name as clearly and succinctly as possible what the real issues at stake are.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
I have found in my marriage that this simple step can save a lot of heartache. Often when Leeanne and I are fighting we actually both agree about the important issues, there has simply been a miscommunication.
That said though, healthy conflict is, and needs to be, a part of daily life because life means a constant state of change. Saul Alinsky said:
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
So step one is:
Write down the real issue al stake. Spell it out as clearly as you can. Work at trying to separate fact from paranoia or pain.
The comment that hurt feelings aren’t the reason for comment that makes so much sense so many times i have caused conflict because of my hurt feelings.
sheryle schmode
August 19th, 2010 at 7:49 pmpermalink