Handling Conflict Well
Written by Ed Allen
Sunday, 02 July 2000 09:00
Several years ago, the country of Columbia had a soccer team that was one of the favorites to win the World Cup. They marched through the qualifying rounds led by defenseman Andres Escobar. In one of the final games, another team was driving the ball down the field. They got the ball to a player in position to score and he made a shot on goal. Escobar tried to block it and kick it out of bounds, but accidentally kicked it into his own goal instead, scoring a goal against his own team. Columbia lost that game. A week later, Escobar was found shot to death in his home. What could make someone do such a thing?
One historian (Will Durant) has suggested that out of 3,400 years of recorded human history there are less than 268 years of known peace. How can this be?
How is it that people who loved one another enough to marry one another end up bitterly hating one another and fighting over the smallest details of their lives? How do brothers and sisters, parents and children end up not speaking to one another sometimes for years? How do neighbors end up in fist fights?
Today we are going to look at what causes conflict and what we do to handle it properly. Today's lesson is just the starting point, but there’s no better place to begin than at the beginning, so let’s get started.
James 4:1-10
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
In this passage, God first of all tries to create awareness. He wants us to know what is going on with us in conflict and why. And then He tells us what will facilitate change.
If we are going to handle conflict well we must:
- Recognize the effects of the blocked goal syndrome;
- Realize the consequences of pursuing the wrong goal;
- Resist the devil; and
- Repent in your heart.
I. Recognize the effects of the blocked goal syndrome.
We all know the blocked goal syndrome. When you really want something and you don't get it, what happens? You get frustrated or hurt or angry or all of the above.
The effects of a blocked goal are most immediately recognized in children. We have all, I suspect, seen what happens when children do not get something that is very important to them. Depending on the child, they may pout, or shout or throw themselves around or sulk away in stony silence. And part of our responsibility as parents and concerned adults is to teach them that this is inappropriate behavior. We can't always get what we want and when we react to our blocked goal by pouting, shouting, sulking or throwing ourselves around, it damages our relationships. It isolates us from one another and never produces the desire affect.
And, according to James, we don't ever completely get over this tendency.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you?” James asks. ”Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.”
Christian psychologist Larry Crabb has suggested that almost all human emotional need has its root in one of two basic needs: the need for significance and the need for security. All of us, Crabb says, have a need to feel secure, to feel that things are taken care of, that we will be okay. And all of us have a need for significance. We need to know that we are important, that our lives count, that they have meaning and purpose.
I know a wonderful, loving couple who sometimes have terrible fights over money. She needs to know that she will be taken care of, that the children will not have to worry, that her environment is secure. She feels like he doesn't care about those things. He wants to make an impact. He sometimes feels that he isn't making an impact. Money discussions tend to remind him that his life doesn't count for as much as he wants it to. So periodically they fight about money – but not really about money.
The Blocked Goal Syndrome: We fight because we do not get what we want...
According to God, we fight because we do not get what we want. It’s that simple. Whenever we feel ourselves rising up in anger we should ask, “What am I not getting that I want?” The blocked goal syndrome produces arguments, quarrels, fighting, even murder.
James' book was written to a group of people who were obviously struggling with fights and divisions. He scolds them in chapter 2 for showing favoritism. In chapter 3 he warns them about their speech. He tells them that the things they say can get them into an awful lot of trouble. Then he says in James 3:13-18,
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.”
II. Realize the consequences of pursuing the wrong goal
According to God, the problem is not that you have desires. The problem is not even that you desire good things for yourself. The problem is that you are shooting at the wrong goal. You are seeking the wrong solution. You are looking in the wrong place to have your desires met.
“You do not have because you do not ask God,” James says.
I like what the French philosopher Blaise Pascal said. “There once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
We were created to have our desires met in God
We were created to have our desires completely met by swimming in the ocean of God's love. We were made to live fully satisfied lives. According to the Bible, sin has damaged our capacity to receive the good from God that He desires to give us. And the lack of satisfaction drives us to reach out and be satisfied. Every time we try to find our satisfaction in anything other than God, we are disappointed.
Either we cannot reach our goal or we reach our goal and it does not bring us the satisfaction that we sought. We find that we did not really want what we thought we wanted. We are frustrated because we have desired the wrong things and what we have desired has either been unattainable or has been unsatisfying. So the consequence of pursuing the wrong goal is: we do not get what we really want.
We don’t get what we want because we want the wrong things
We said that we fight because we don't get what we want. Now we can add that we don’t get what we want because we want the wrong things. James tells us in James 4:2b-6:
"You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'"
The Root of our Conflict is Spiritual
God makes it clear here that the root of our fights and quarrels is not just a childish self-centeredness. The root of our conflict is spiritual. We have sought satisfaction from things and circumstances. This is what James calls friendship with the world. And this makes us an enemy of God. Can you see why Jesus was often so impatient with those who were considered to be religious. You can be religious, you can believe in God and still be a practical atheist. If you are seeking your satisfaction and pleasure from things and circumstances, then you are an enemy of God.
Someone may be thinking, “why such strong language, God? Come on. Adulterers, God-haters. Isn’t this going a bit far?”
ILLUSTRATION: Paul and LeeAnn, a married couple with two kids. Paul wants the kids and LeeAnn to be happy. Imagine LeeAnn telling Paul she wants to go live with another man. Paul doesn’t mind that LeeAnn wants good things. But he wants her to want those things with him. Even more so, God not only wants us to want good things with Him, He knows that we can only really get good things from Him.
C. S. Lewis said, "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
James has made it clear that we fight because we don't get what we want. We don’t get what we want because we want the wrong things.
Our efforts to handle conflict properly begin with the right awareness
Our efforts to handle conflict properly begin with the right awareness. We have to recognize the effects of the blocked goal syndrome. And we have to realize the consequences of pursuing the wrong goal.
Furthermore, when we find ourselves in a quarrel because we haven’t gotten what we really wanted, James makes it clear that God does not feel sorry for us. He opposes us. As long as we are holding on to our end of the fight, working to justify ourselves or to prove ourselves right, then God is working against us.
So how do get in a different place? How do we bring change? James tells us plainly. He first gives us a summary statement and then he elaborates with what amounts to a 2-step process.
Begin by submitting to God
He begins by telling us to submit to God. This one simple truth has been a life saver in my marriage. When I am in a fight with Diane that I simply cannot see my way out of – and I frankly don’t want to see my way out of – God reminds me that no matter how right I think I am, I am absolutely wrong if I cannot submit to Him. And no sooner do I submit to Him than all of the sting of my anger or frustration is lessened. Or if I cannot submit to Him, then I get a whole new perspective on the fight. I am forced to recognize that I am in the wrong in ways that I am refusing to admit.
So how do I submit to God? What does that look like?
III. Resist the devil.
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
Modern science has made it clear that there are invisible forces in nature that exercise great influence over us. Friction, or inertia, or gravity for instance. The Bible makes it absolutely clear that there unseen forces outside of nature, which also exercise influence over everything we do. Unlike friction, the forces of which the Bible speaks are personal and they are bias. Some of these forces want what is best for us and some of them mean us harm. The champion of the forces that want to harm us the Bible calls the devil.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time I used to think this whole notion was ludicrous. I suspect this is exactly what the devil would want me to think. As long as I ignore him, he can exercise great influence over me. As long as I remain convinced that the incredible power that temptation sometimes exercises over me is purely circumstantial, then he can continue to impact me. As long as I think of devils as little fictional characters dressed in red suits and holding pitch forks, then he can continue to undermine all my efforts to understand God. He can continue to hold me captive. He can keep me working at making myself a better person, knowing that there is no way for me in my own power to make that happen. And he can cause chaos, and confusion in my relationships with others.
But as soon as I resist him, he will flee. What an incredible, powerful promise. We often neglect this aspect of overcoming conflict. And, I believe, we often fail to reach full reconciliation because of we overlook it.
However, we must remember that James does not suggest that it is a question of submitting to God or to the devil. The real enemy of God in fights and quarrels is our own pride – our desire to be right or our tendency to hang on to hurt and nurse it. This is what must be laid down. But the devil is at our elbow saying, “They need to feel how much you hurt. They need to hurt this much or they’ll never listen.” Or, “Don’t say a word until they speak first. After all they hurt you.” Or, “YOU have to make them see just how wrong they are. They don’t get it.”
This appeal to our pride must be resisted. It will not simply go away.
IV. Repent in your hearts.
The word repent literally means to change direction. If you are headed east toward D.C. to repent means to make a U-turn and head west toward the mountains. James doesn't use the word “repent” in this passage, but he uses all of the symbols of repentance that his readers would have been familiar with. “Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.”
In other words, the fight is not going to be resolved by simply changing our behavior, by gritting our teeth and revving up the energy index. No, there is a deep spiritual core to the quarrel and it must be healed and changed. God wants to be received into our heart; He wants to show us how deceitful, wrongly motivated, and selfishly depraved our hearts naturally are.
Remember, we are not fighting simply because we disagree. We are fighting because we are determined to get what we want. But as long as we doggedly hold on to our desire to get what we want we will never get what we want, because in the midst of our quarrel we can all be sure we want the wrong thing. Underneath it all we want to feel loved and secure; we want to be significant. There’s nothing wrong with this desire. But we demand of each other that we be made to feel this way and we demand that it happen in exactly the way we expect. This is, of course, very wrong.
Repentance means we drop that demand.
Conclusion
Imagine a husband and wife who sit down together at the end of the day to discuss vacation for the summer. The wife suggests that they end their vacation by spending several days with her family. The husband says this would not feel like vacation to him. The wife makes some disparaging remark about the husband commitment to family. The husband makes some disparaging remark about the wife's family and about her inattention to his need for vacation. And 30 minutes later they are yelling at one another about who said what.
To handle this conflict well means that each person must ask “what do I really want here?” Each person must recognize the consequences of wanting the wrong things. Each person must resist both the circumstances that exacerbate the conflict and the extra voice that speaks soothingly to their hurt and anger. And each person must make a heartfelt U-turn toward God.
Conflict drags us down. It saps our energy. It steals our joy. If we humble ourselves before God, if we accept his way and follow His prescription for handling conflict, He will lift us up.