A Wonderfully Helpful Piece of Advice in the Midst of Conflict

I once knew a guy who was so unpredictable in his response to my sermons. We agreed that Jesus saves people but beyond that we didn’t have a ton of things in which we were in agreement. I knew—or at least thought I knew—which were hot button topics for him. Anytime the text would lead me to preach on this I was expecting a conversation afterwards. Sometimes it happened. Sometimes it didn’t. Either way those times of conflict usually didn’t go to poorly, because I was expecting them.

What really caught me off guard, though, were the times when I expected to be in agreement. In these times I was caught unawares. I was in the middle of a conflict before I even knew it. Half the time I got lost as to what we were even in disagreement about. But for some reason this brother was fired up about something I had said. I never did as well in those times of conflict…at least at first.

There is one piece of advice that I picked up from Robert Jones which has stuck with me and helped me tremendously in these types of situations. It is a simple principle that every Christian knows—but for some reason we usually don’t apply it to conflict. Here it is: Our all-consuming aim is to please God. Whenever I make that my goal in relational conflict it changes things. It gives me something to hone my eyes and heart upon. In his book, Pursuing Peace, Jones goes on to give nine implications of making pleasing God our goal.

1. Failure to please God—our failure or the other person’s, or both—is the ultimate cause of all relational conflict
2. This goal of pleasing God keeps our focus on God, not on the conflict issues or on the other person
3. In Christ, this goal is always doable, no matter how the other person behaves
4. This goal will help us pace our efforts (our energy, timing, risk, etc.)
5. God might bless our efforts by brining reconciliation
6. If both parties seek to please God, full reconciliation is guaranteed
7. Even if the other person does not please God, we can experience God’s blessing and comfort
8. We must continue our commitments to please God even if the other person does not, and even if the relationship gets worse
9. When the goal of pleasing God governs us, the other person’s sins and failures become opportunities, not obstacles, to please God more and more, and to grow as a Christian.

I’ve found that in the midst of any conflict—but especially those which really catch me off-guard—pausing and thinking through how to please God in this situation has been very helpful. It’s still difficult at times to know precisely how to answer the question of what is most pleasing to God. But at least I’ve got a solid and biblical aim now, and that’s a great start.