What your conflicts with others say about your relationship with God

Think back to the last conflict you were involved in. Maybe it was an argument with your spouse or a disagreement with a friend, coworker or other family member. Imagine the scenario. What was your gut reaction? Your initial feelings?

Did you want to run and hide? Fight back? Defend yourself? Try to make peace as quickly as possible? Cater to the desires of the other person so the argument would be over?

I’ve been guilty of several of these reactions. When I was young and my parents had an argument, my mother would retreat upstairs to her bedroom (usually in tears) and my father would stand by the fireplace downstairs and read a magazine. Not exactly your picture of healthy conflict resolution.

Even though I was the child and not the parent, I found this situation unacceptable. I was very uncomfortable with unresolved conflict, so I stuck my nose in the mess and tried to play the peacemaker. I’d go talk to my mom and see what she was upset about. Then I’d go report that information to Dad and encourage him to go talk to her. They allowed me to play negotiator instead of telling me to butt out. Thankfully, I can’t imagine one of my own kids trying to do that now!

As an adult, I sometimes feel that desire to run from conflict like my mother did, but thankfully my husband insists on pursuing the issue until it’s resolved. My other tendency is to defend myself. When someone has a complaint about me, I explain why they shouldn’t have that complaint. I really had good reasons for why I did what I did so they shouldn’t be upset.

I have discovered the hard way that defending oneself does not lead to healthy conflict resolution. Quite the opposite - it tends to escalate the situation. Especially in marriage. Just saying.

Over the years, I have had to go back and process through WHY I get defensive. The healthy way to handle conflict would be to remain calm and consider objectively whether the other person has a legitimate complaint against you that you need to apologize for and change. Easier said than done, right?

But why? Why is it so hard for us to do that?

I believe it’s because of fear and insecurity. To admit that we have done something wrong is to admit that we are flawed. It requires humility but also a security in God’s love for us. If we doubt our security in Christ, then we are working hard to build up our security in something else - generally our own abilities and sense of worthiness. If we agree that we are not always right or that we do things that upset others, then that pokes holes in our shroud of security. It’s frightening and doesn’t feel safe, so we do things like fight back, run and hide or try to placate the offended person.

Those reactions don’t lead to healthy relationships.

They also don’t reflect a true understanding of God and a healthy relationship with Him.

What do we do about it?

I think one step is to look as objectively as possible about how you handle conflict and how you learned to handle conflict while you were growing up. As we talked about in an earlier post, a genogram can be a helpful tool in looking at this. One indicator of unhealthy conflict resolution is fractured relationships - marital strife or divorce, family members who refuse to speak to each other, or just a general feeling of animosity toward each other. You can track these fractured relationships through your family tree.

Another consequence of unhealthy conflict is unhealthy boundaries. Sometimes in our determination to make the conflict go away (flight instead of fight), we are willing to capitulate to whatever the other person wants. We don’t say ‘no’ or express our opinions because we know it will rock the boat. We might feel like that’s being the peacemaker and is an admirable quality, but it’s a false peace. It’s a fake mask of peace. True peace comes from working through a conflict in a healthy way and coming out with a resolution on the other side.

In your genogram, you can trace what you know of unhealthy boundaries as they relate to interpersonal conflicts.

Once you can see the patterns of how you learned to do conflict in an unhealthy way, take a look at what goes on in your soul during a conflict. Think about the last major conflict you were involved in. Journal about it. How did you feel? What were you afraid of? Why did you respond the way you did? What false beliefs about God do those responses point to?

Once you’ve identified false beliefs, you can begin to counter them with God’s truth. For me, I tended to feel like I was less valuable if I admitted that I was wrong. If I confessed my impure motives and my mistakes, then it would threaten the core of who I am. I had to dwell on the fact that God loves me unconditionally. He knows better than anyone that I’m a sinful person with selfish motives, I struggle wanting to be in control of every situation, and the list goes on. My husband also would very much prefer that I simply own whatever it was that I did so we can talk through it and move on. I’ve had to frequently remind myself that my ultimate worth was determined at the cross, not by any attempt at being perfect.

You are loved, even when you mess up. The road to healthy relationships is owning when you sin and resolving conflict with humility and grace. What step can you make in that direction today?

If you’d like to try using a genogram to trace some of these patterns in your family history, you can download my guide to using one here.