Discern

Conflict is an everyday occurrence in our home. If I do not hear screeches followed by the pitter patter of feet coming to tell me how the soon-to-be-heard story about being hit or pinched was totally justified because of a previous tone or insult, then something is wrong. Somebody is not living up to their full potential. We have pre-breakfast conflict, during-breakfast conflict, and the post-breakfast slugfest. Sometimes, but not always, we have a mid-morning armistice, to be followed by what can only be described as the first shots of World War III, something I like to call the “I need a nap” time of the day. The icing on it all is the before bed-romp and stomp which usually only involves tears and words because by then hitting is just too much trouble. We have so much conflict in our home that Rachel and I have become quite adept at discerning the sources and trajectories of conflict, often before they even happen. We usually can tell within a few minutes if we are going to have a good day or if we are going to try to bring on the apocalypse. Most of the time the conflicts have nothing to do with what they are “about,” though we are yet to convince those parties involved. Conflict in our home has little to do with who hit whom or who took a tone first. Conflict often has little to do with the other party at all. Most often, actually pretty much 100% of the time, conflict in our home starts inside someone’s heart with an unmet desire or expectation which leads to a level of frustration that can only be resolved through the cathartic activity of pinching someone and calling them  a “Stupid Head.” Makes perfect sense to me.

What amazes me is how much conflict remains the same long after you and I are no longer four feet tall and in elementary school. Yes, conflict is still so often at its core about whom hit who first and who used a tone which totally justifies my cathartic reaction of pinching you and calling you a “Stupid Head.” OK. Maybe it doesn’t go like that. It is usually much worse. You take a tone. I take an offense. I get snarky. You withdraw. I stomp off muttering something about the level of your IQ. You type away on Facebook letting the world know about my insensitive incompetence. All of that happens sometime before lunchtime. The afternoon is filled with my tweets about your lack of social grace and your texts telling me to go jump in the lake. What is that in texting? GJNLK? We might have a dinner cease-fire but we are back at it before bedtime cutting one another down by small degrees. After all, we all rest better when we feel worthless. After a good night’s rest we might actually be friends again; that is, until the next time you roll your eyes and I have to knock them out of your head, metaphorically speaking of course.

On the surface it all makes perfect sense. We are fighting because you hit me first. You took a tone. Therefore, I am perfectly justified. . .no. . .I am required to hit you back. When I look below the surface I see that what is going on between you and me is a bit more complex than you hitting me. Our conflict started when I approached you looking for you to affirm me. When you didn’t affirm me I dropped hints which you totally blew off because all you could think about was getting your work done so you could slip out early to work on your golf swing. I pressed in and you pressed back. I was offended and you got defensive. You hit me and I hit you back, and now we are fighting about who knows what but it doesn’t have anything to do with what is really going on. What we are really fighting about is my need for affirmation and your desire to work on your golf swing. We patch things up and move on but we’ll do the same thing tomorrow if we don’t deal with the real issue. We will just change the content and location. I have been thinking that an argument over the copy machine or the coffee pot might be nice and shake things up a bit.

The point is that most of our conflict is not what we are actually fighting about. Often, conflict has little to do with whom hit who first, nor does it usually involve the other person to a large degree. Most of the time conflict starts with an unmet desire or expectation which, left unmet, becomes so painful that I will blame you. When my unmet desire meets your unmet expectation, sparks fly. Suddenly we fight about anything and everything but never actually about what is really the issue. When nothing is the issue then suddenly everything becomes the issue: what you did last week, what you did today, and what I know you are going to do tomorrow. Oh, and I don’t like that tie you are wearing, either. It makes you look fat. If we want to stop fighting we have to start looking, not at one another, but inside ourselves. We must open our lives to God so that we might see what he sees, those desires and expectations that are so important—could we say more important than God?—that we are willing to fight about them. If we would open our lives to God, maybe, just maybe, we might discover that we have very little to fight about. Then again, maybe we’ll just meet at the copy machine tomorrow and pick up where we left off.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Search our hearts: Conflict is common to the human experience, but followers of Christ handle conflict in an uncommon way. The way we handle conflict begins with a commitment to loving our opponent, and is followed by a thorough search for our contribution to the conflict so that we might allow God to purify us. This week, we encourage you to help your children practice this by making space to think about their conflicts. At some point, near the end of their day, ask them if anyone hurt them or if they hurt anyone that day. Listen to them without downplaying what they say. Acknowledge their pain and then remind them that they are loved unconditionally by you and by God. Ask them why what was said hurt them or why they might have wanted to hurt someone. Help them to see how the action or reaction might have roots inside them, issues that God wants to deal with. Hug them and then invite them to confess their own sin to God, asking him to forgive them and to forgive their opponent.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Examine yourself: The core of conflict is often unmet desire. When we do not have what we desire, we resort to harmful tactics in order to manipulate people and situations so that our desires might be met. Before we can truly address conflict we must first seek to discern the underlying issues within our own heart. One way you might do this is by meditating on James 4.1-3, allowing God to remind you that conflict is never completely one-sided. After, read Psalm 139.1-18, allowing God to affirm his love for you. After this, read Psalm 139.23-24 and rephrase these verses into a personal prayer to God. Open your heart to seeing what God sees. Confess what God brings to mind and ask him to show you how to surrender these issues to him.