Conflict Resolution
My best friend's dad tried to kill me..
No matter where you’re at in your spiritual journey, one of the things I think everyone can appreciate about the Bible is that it’s just so shockingly real in every area it touches on including relational conflict. The Bible doesn’t try to sugarcoat, sanitize, or deny that relationships are hard. It’s all right here in every chapter of the Bible… the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Don’t believe me? Right from the first book, you’ll read about Cain and Abel’s sibling rivalry that eventually culminates in history’s very first murder. I’d call that real conflict. There’s an up-and-coming military hero David, whose best friend’s dad, King Saul is struggling with his mental health and trying to kill David. A painful story about serial adultery by a woman named Gomer and the unrelenting love of her husband Hosea. And then there’s Martha, the original Martha Stewart, who struggles with deep-seated resentment and perfectionism.
The Bible is full of stories about relationships that go south or end up in the ditch. Let’s be honest, we can relate! Throughout our lives, all of us have repeatedly found ourselves amid relationship struggles.
In James 3:18, we read those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. My hunch is James was trying to paint a vision of what relationships could be like. Even during seasons of relationship conflicts, family conflicts, political conflicts, in-law conflicts, and sibling conflicts, you can reap a harvest of righteousness. How? If you plant seeds of peace. When James writes these words about being a peacemaker, he anticipates our natural reaction would be something like, “You just don’t know who I’m married to,” or “You don’t know my mom, my dad! You don’t know the whacked-out people I work with! You don’t know my history, the things people have said to me, or the things people have done.”
Conflict Solutions
So what causes conflict? What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? James, inspired by Holy Spirit of God, has a very counterintuitive and unexpected answer to this question. He says they come from your desires that battle within you. You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. Hmmm… I wonder what is causing our quarrels and fights? James is pretty clear in no uncertain terms that it’s the evil desires at war within ourselves.
Another way to say it is there’s a war in the center of the Y-O-U… YOUniverse! There’s a war that goes on inside the soul of every human being, including you, including me. This battle is at the root of the fights and quarrels in the Middle East. This battle is at the root of the divisive polarizing spirit in our nation. This battle is at the core of the quarrels and fights we had at work this past week, in our vehicle on the way home.
youverse
Why? Because there is a WAR raging in the center of the Y-O-Universe! You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. These relational conflicts come from these desires that war within when we put ourselves at the center of the Y-O-Universe. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
You can detect this “war within” when someone you know lives in a nicer home than yours or drives a nicer truck than yours. This jealousy and selfish ambition rises when your friends have 9-feet ceilings and you only have 8-feet ceilings. Or when you take a staycation, but it seems like your friends are constantly going on extravagant vacations.
Because of those desires that battle within, we scheme and kill to get it. I bet you’re thinking, “I’ve never killed anybody to get what I want. I’ve never taken a knife to someone’s throat to get my way.” But have you ever stabbed someone in the back with your words to get what you want?
I’ve heard of people getting into a co-worker’s computers and deleting files just to hurt a competitor’s career. I’ve known people who create anonymous social media accounts to post untrue, destructive, or embarrassing things about others. I’m not trying to give you any ideas; I’m just saying people will go to great lengths to satisfy the desires that battle within at the center of their Y-O-Universe.
Maybe the height of our arrogance is when we resort to attempting to manipulate God for our own self-centered gains. James 4:3 reads even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong; you want only what will give you pleasure. James is basically saying we are so self-centered and so arrogant that we’ve made ourselves the center of our own Y-O-Universe. Sometimes we even attempt to manipulate God to help us fulfill those desires that war within. Remember, Jesus taught us to pray where we humbly believe “Your kingdom come, LORD, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
James is talking about the all-everywhere, all-knowing, all-powerful God of wonders of the universe. And somehow, many of us get blinded by our own little frail and finite story in this vast big universe and miss the story of this big, massive, glorious, eternal, transcendent, holy, awesome God who is all around us and at the center of it all.
We can so easily make life all about us. We can think we are the big man on campus, the big fish in a little pond or the big daddy. You want to see what a big daddy dude I am? You want to see how much I’m the man in our family? Here’s a picture of me with our son Jeremy. As you can tell, I’ve really got the upper hand in our family…I can pretend I’m “da man,” but I’m not “da man.” Friends, we are deluded when we put ourselves at the center of the universe and think we’re “da man” or “da woman.” The story of this universe is not ultimately about me or you.
James 4:14 reminds us, “What is your life?” You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. That’s how significant you are. That’s how significant I am. We are a tiny, minuscule, momentary blip on the timeline of eternity. But God is forever. He is from everlasting and to everlasting. When He created the world and this vast universe, He went BIG.
Conflicts and Conflict Resolution
Once you discover you’re not the center of the universe and learn who the true center of the universe really is and how CRAZY He is about you, it will completely change your perspective on everything! Sometimes, it’s hard for us to humble ourselves and admit we don’t have it all together, isn’t it? It’s hard to admit weaknesses or to acknowledge shortcomings. Long-time friendships can dissolve because one or both people can’t humbly ask for forgiveness. Marriages break up because one or both of them has to win every argument. I know parents who can’t humbly admit they are wrong, and they leave their kids resentful, wounded, and broken. There are some of you with some very tattered relationships right now that will stay that way until one or both of you can humble yourself before God and each other.
Friends, if you want a quick crash course in humility, just try resisting the devil without humbling yourself before God and see how it goes. Think about your greatest temptation, the problem-sin that most frequently trips you up, the sin you can barely stave off even when you’re at your spiritual best. Now take away the power of God in your life, the work of the Holy Spirit, the support of your brothers and sisters in the family of God, and see if you can resist the devil in your own strength. I can’t and neither can you.
Come close to God, and God will come close to you. The closer you draw to God, the closer He draws to you. We have the choice 100 times a day as to whether we’re going to come close to God. After the alarm goes off and we’re still lying in bed we have the choice to pray, “God I’m going to come close to you today.” When someone we live with, someone we work with, or someone we go to church with disappoints or hurts us, we have a choice right there to say, “Before I explode… I’m going to come close to God.”
Until you humble yourself, relational conflicts will never heal. Humility is the soil for peacemaking and peacekeeping. Imagine seeing your top 10 biggest secret sins playing on a screen in Times Square. What if our sins were broadcast frame by frame? Do you know what would happen? Every single one of us would be filled with tears of repentance because it would all be exposed: the lies, the mistakes, the envy, the slander, the sins, the people we’ve hurt. We’d fall to our knees and admit to God we need His grace and beg him to come close.
There’s nothing that could change your relationships more than living in a spirit of humility where we are no longer a Y-O-Universe but centered in realizing this is God’s universe.
Our team has compiled some of the most challenging, difficult, controversial, frequently asked questions we get about faith and Christianity as it relates to life, morality, current events, the end of the world, sexuality, and more. Week by week we’ll unpack seven of these questions in ways that I think you’ll find fascinating and informative. These questions are often the roadblocks for people when it comes to faith and Christianity. We’ve even titled the final week of the series, the subject you thought we would skip and not have the courage to address. You can read out Eastside’s Got Questions Blog and check out the series You Asked For It.
Author: Gene Appel
Eastside Christian Church
Anaheim, CA
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