Surviving Conflict

Conflict is inevitable. How’s that for a depressing opening statement! Sad, but true. Yet it isn’t always a bad thing. When we find ourselves in conflict, when people we love are in conflict, when we are conflicted about the conflict (huh?), what can we do to peel away the layers and get to the truth? Here is what seems to work for me.

Communication and Perception

The two main places to peel when conflicts arise are problems around communication, and problems around perception. What kinds of problems? With communication you can have too much communication, not enough communication, irrelevant communication, or inappropriate communication (like gossip). With perception the problem has to do with some kind of filter through which people are filtering the communication. Fear filters, anger filters, disbelief filters, ignorance filters, and so on.

When things blow up and seem nearly beyond repair, there tends to be so much frustration and tension that no one involved (even the one primarily responsible for resolving the conflict, like a pastor) wants to slow down or even stop so as to evaluate the communication and the perceptions. When that does not happen, marriages split, churches split, and people split (that’s hipster speak for “depart”). There is no question, conflict can be extremely destructive. But it can also be very beneficial, but that doesn’t me we should cause it intentionally. Duh.

Beneficial Conflict

How can conflict be beneficial? Let’s look at this from some other perspectives. When the blacksmith pulls the iron from the fire and hits it with his hammer, sparks fly, metal is bent out of the shape it was originally in and into a new shape, eventually the shape that the blacksmith had in mind when he put the iron into the fire. When a house falls into disrepair it is often gutted and remodeled. Walls are ripped down, rearranged, and rebuilt. Rotting foundations are replaced, faulty electrical circuits get ripped out and are rewired, bathrooms get stripped of the moldy materials and are refinished. When precious metals like silver and gold are dug from the earth (which takes a lot of work) they go through a lengthy process of refining before they become the thing that we treasure and put on display. Crushing, constant heating and melting, surfacing and removal of impurities, molding, hammering, until you have the final product. There is much conflict in all of these processes, but the outcome is a very desired finished product. All of it requires understanding, patience, and submission.

In the same way, bad marriages, infighting churches, broken families, problems at work, also require understanding, patience, and submission to one another. Sometimes things need to blow up in order for you to pick up the pieces and put it back together again properly. Sometimes that’s the only way for situations to begin the healing process.

When conflicts arise, to be afraid. Don’t try to place blame first and ask questions later. Learn as much as you can, correct perceptions as much as you can, and act on what you know and perceive. Sometimes, it isn’t going to be enough, but you won’t know that until it’s too late, and things might actually get worse. Even that can be OK. How? How can making things worse (accidentally mind you) be OK? Because it’s part of the hammer hitting, mold removing, gold refining process. Don’t give up. Be patient. Encourage understanding, encourage patience, and encourage submission. In the end you will have a very desired finished product. After all, look at Jesus. His life was filled with conflict. The cross is the very image of conflict. Yet it was the only means for our salvation. God uses, God even ordains conflict, all of it with restoration between people and restoration with Himself, as the chief goal. Like Joseph said in Genesis 20, what some people mean for evil God means for good.

God is good.