1. Show Respect: When we strongly oppose another’s point of view it’s human nature to want to not only want to tear it down but associate the ideas with the worth of the person. 1 Peter 2:17 says this, “Show proper respect to everyone.” When we show respect to others we are polite. We give consideration to a belief or thought process that differs from ours because just as God has given us free will to choose, so does he give it to others. When we show respect we may actually learn something new and valuable or have a better understanding of what motivates another.
2. Speak Truth:  Don’t let “spin” get in the way of facts. The media is so good at taking an event, comment or idea and spinning it into something fraught with all sorts of other implications, meanings and so-called “truth.” Before you know it groups of people are asserting that things are true when they aren’t. How many times can you think of where what you thought was true turned out not to be? Probably quite a few. Ephesians 4:25 tells us, “Therefore, each one of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully…”
3. Listen Carefully:  This is so incredibly important. Life is noisy and filled with distractions in the 21st Century. It takes discipline and practice to learn to listen. When we interact with others, we can find them focused on a smart phone or staring off. At times we may be guilty of the same. Quite often, when in conflict with another, we aren’t really paying attention to the other person but thinking about what we next want to say. But listen! James 1:19-20 commands that “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” In other words, besides paying full attention to someone you disagree with, watch your tone of voice (or writing). As soon as you ratchet it up to a hot temper, the wall between you and others grows higher. You shut down communication and the opportunity to get past disagreement and conflict.
4. Value and Protect Your Conscience: Do our actions, thoughts and words during conflict conform to or run contrary to God and His laws? And do we treasure those laws? In Acts 24: 16, the Apostle Paul states, “…I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” Paul has been wrongfully accused of much discord in Caesarea with creating riots, being a ‘ringleader’ of unrest and more. He responds with self-evaluation which we all have the capacity for. He says, “My accusers did not find me arguing with anyone at the temple or stirring up a crowd…” And this is how he knows his conscience is clear. When engaged in conflict, do we allow the Holy Spirit to prompt us towards God’s laws or do we shut Him out only to allow our sense of righteousness treat others insensitively and without compassion?
5. Be Open to Justifiable Correction:  In many conflicts, both sides have valid points. We can stubbornly hold onto beliefs or opinions for various reasons. Sometimes we need what can be referred to as a “reality check.” This is where, “He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise.” Proverbs 15:31. This can take many forms, this ‘rebuke’ from the Lord. He may use another person to chastise us. It may come as a check in our spirit or as a ‘silencing’ from the Lord.
6. Say “No” without guilt: Social media & ‘news’ outlets have ramped up division & discord. A lot of what they do (& we often play into) is to focus on how shocked & outraged we should be. I am inclined to jump into the fray like I’m at the gym. I volley back & forth with another or others with passion, criticism, or insistence that my perspective is the right one. We need to refuse to play verbal volleyball because even if we happen to be sharing truth, people do not receive it well when they are thwacked in the head with it. It does not bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Scenes of life don’t always have to be filled with dialogue. In other words, there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. Knowing when requires a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Titus 2:11-12 says “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness & worldly passion & to live self-controlled, upright & godly lives.” That ‘grace,’ or favor toward the unworthy that God demonstrated to us must extend to all we find ourselves engaged with in conflict. For that ‘grace’ affects our tone & tactfulness. Conflict is normal. Conflict is okay! But we need to glorify God in the midst of it with a loving concern for others, taking a stand for Biblical truth & not being dragged into sin over it.
7. Unplug from abusive situations: We’ve all heard expressions like “Bad company corrupts good character,” or “You’re known by the company you keep.” These truisms originate from Proverbs. “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.” (22:24-25) I am fully aware there are combative people we must encounter & have relationships with like a crazy uncle, a co-worker or a neighbor. Yet do we re-visit dry wells looking to be filled? We need to stay away from sites, groups or sources that kick up our own anger or wilt our spirits. Or, at minimum, limit our exposure to them. And, this is really important: We have to stop getting mad at people living in darkness! The conflict going on globally is so much of man thinking his limited enlightenment is going to write the script that flows with the best ideas to lead through critical times like these. This is false. We are engaged in a global spiritual battle of which God is in control & always at work behind the scenes. The answer is not more of the ‘tolerance’ foisted upon a nation, for God does not applaud tolerance. For, tolerance + moral relativism = confusion, chaos and crisis. At the same time, neither does God applaud extremism. Ecclesiastes 7:18: “The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.” Conflict can be spiritual & requires the weapon of prayer to fight against it, but we need to refuse to take center stage at places where we are harmed. Walk away or shut it down where conflict flourishes.
8. Ask God for wisdom or, don’t believe every word said! We live in a world becoming increasingly deceptive like so many extravagant special effects & technological marvels spinning around us. Discerning the truth requires wisdom now more than ever. While God is happy to give it to us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, & it will be given him,” James 1:5, there are actions required of us before we receive wisdom & grow in it. First we must come to God through His Son Jesus Christ and make him Lord and Savior of our lives. We seek Him with all of our hearts, read and know His Word & live in continual fellowship with His Holy Spirit. And, that “Spirit of truth guides us in all truth.” (John 16:13). I find myself quick to believe something because I think I trust the source. Or I do not take the time to investigate the source. Before we speak, post, write or comment do we seek wisdom and discernment from our One source of truth before we pass something along as gospel?
9. Seek peaceful resolution: There are certain people we all know with whom we will never see eye to eye. We have to pick & choose our battles with them & others. We should ask ourselves if by engaging in conflict will we be headed towards a confrontational breakthrough? Or, will we be careening ourselves and another for confrontational collision? Conflict should lead to resolution. And resolution can lead to reconciliation. God loves reconciliation for Jesus’s greatest gift to us was to reconcile us to God. We may be dealing with our polar opposite in perspective, yet guidance the Holy Spirit gives to us may require us to do nothing. Or, it may require our obedience to truly touch and change a heart in action. Maybe we will be urged to write someone a heartfelt letter, give a gift in secret, pray a certain way, or meet and connect with someone in person. God leads us to action to resolve conflict in countless ways.
10. Choose to let God’s love rule in your heart: There is no better way to sum up how to engage in conflict in a godly way than 1Corinthians 13. It’s often referred to as the ‘marriage’ scripture because God knows marriage can often present conflict. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing…” Of love, it reveals itself in patience, kindness, a rejoicing over truth, protection, hope and perseverance. What it does not do is envy, boast, get prideful or self-seeking. Nor is it easily angered. While conflict will always arise, love never fails.

Reflections in the Healing Pool

     One Saturday I decided to catch up with a good friend. Over lunch she confided in me her struggle with taking prescribed medication to correct a chemical imbalance she had been diagnosed with by a psychiatrist. I listened with a sympathetic ear until she said that she anticipated the departure of her depression as that of having to “say good-bye to an old friend.”

     “An old friend!” I gasped, incredulous. The uncomfortable silence that followed made me regret my instant rush to judgement. I didn’t know how Christ would have responded, but my friend’s downcast eyes made me want to understand.

     Later, at home, I searched healing Scriptures in the Bible and found myself in John, Chapter Five and “The Healing Pool.”

     Reading about the only instance in the New Testament in which Jesus asks someone if they wanted to get well, I felt convicting goosebumps rise on my arms. Unexpectedly, the Holy Spirit began showing me about my own resistance to healing.

     The paralytic answers Jesus’ question by focusing not on the hope before him, but on the obstacles faced during thirty-eight long years watching others get results. (If indeed there was a stirring of the pool that healed people). Sadly, I realized the power I have given to obstacles in my own life over God’s great ability to heal. If I had set my sights on the One Who heals rather than my emotions, it could have taken a lot less time for the Holy Spirit to renew and restore me for service to the Lord.

     Instead, I saw that I was responsible for time ill spent by hiding behind the “comparison barrier” I had built before the Lord. I thwarted the Lord’s healing attempts by looking at others growing in their faith and in ministry by telling myself things like, “God must love her more,” or “He can take care of that, he’s got greater gifts,” or “She’s a better Christian than me…”

     Patiently the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the first step on a healing journey requires surrender of those obstacles that are unique to us as individuals, yet universal in their result of raising a barrier to God’s divine touch in our lives. Gently, Jesus had pried open my white-knuckled fingers that had clutched to the “old self.” As if I were an onion, he was peeling away layer after layer of my inner “soulish” woman to reveal at my core the close companionship of my own friends—negativity and pride. I had bouts of entertaining them with either brooding or making mental lists of how I could be more righteous before God. The truth is emotions lie and we cannot sanctify ourselves. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, “The One who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” Not us, but Him in us. We are already made righteous before God when we accept Christ.

     I thought of that paralytic lying beside the pool for more than a generation, possibly nursing resentment, frustration and sorrow. Maybe he gave up all hope and desire to help himself until all these things bloomed into a kind of safe and familiar pain. He tells Jesus in verse 7: “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.” No one? It’s difficult to imagine that thirty-eight years brought with them no one person willing to assist this lame man in an effort to be given the ability to walk again. If I were in his position, I could see myself begging others to drag me right up to the edge of that pool before it stirred, rather than recline under a colonnade.

     But then, this illustration may demonstrate humankind’s tendency to withdraw into the predictability of suffering rather than risk leaping into healing pools at a price.

     There is a cost to being made well. We’re not made well just to enjoy healing, though that’s part of it. We’re made well to be vocal in praise and thanksgiving, to tell others about miracles in our lives and minister healing to them. The paralytic was given working legs and feet to do it.

     But when the paralytic is confronted about who healed him, he has no idea. Didn’t he want to know? Wouldn’t he have wanted to run, with renewed legs, to find his healer, to shout out to others the amazing thing that had just happened to him?

     When Jesus re-encounters the man the next day, He says to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). This is a shocking statement never said to anyone else in the Scriptures from a merciful and compassionate Lord. Was the man’s paralysis the result of some sin in his life? We just don’t know. But maybe, our divine Healer was demonstrating that we are to speak our testimony about Jesus to others. It is the message we are urged to spread among a hurting and fallen world. The very next verse says, “Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus Who had healed him.

     I next made the important decision to be part of Jesus’ healing ministry by calling my friend and telling her I knew just what she had meant that day, by sharing what the Holy Spirit had revealed to me.

Discussion Questions

Are there any obstacles in your life that create a barrier between you and God?

Do you entertain any “friends” because they are predictable and comfortable?

Do you regularly share with others about God healing you of old wounds and transforming your life?

Closing prayer

Father God, thank you for your Holy Spirit Who makes us aware of obstacles and barriers we put up against wholeness found through you. We ask you for the deep healing and transformation only You can do in us, and a willingness to share our victories through you. “We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

     Finally, John waves me over. They’re ready to see us in one of the offices in the back of the building. Relief surges through me. It’s tough to see all these babies while having a body that just refuses to conceive. I don’t want to imagine that any of them are unwanted, resented or not provided for properly.      

     Children’s wailing echoes in the hallways as I follow John. Expressionless women avoid eye contact as they hurriedly pass us by. Though their faces give no clue as to why they are here, nobody seems particularly happy to be where they are. Except for my husband and me. We’re really quite heartened and eager to have yet one more step of the adoption journey about to be completed. 

    After our blood is drawn, we’re ushered into an office to wait in chairs facing a desk that takes up about half the miniscule room. On the wall behind the desk there are at least a dozen children’s drawings. Many of the pictures are made out to a “Bob” who we have yet to meet.

     Around ten minutes later he greets us in his office and tells us the HIV test is accompanied by both a sexual questionnaire and counseling. I can’t quite believe what I am hearing. 

     I can feel myself flush with annoyance when Bob asks, “How many sexual partners have you had, and do you currently have?” Ridiculously he next asks us, “How many times have you had unprotected sex?”

     Bob treats us like we’re some kind of promiscuous swingers instead of a married, committed Christian couple trying to adopt a baby. I can’t understand why this line of questioning is necessary for adoption. Either Bob didn’t get the memo or it’s because the Department of Health is government run with inane bureaucratic protocols.   

     Nobody, but nobody has to complete a lengthy sexual questionnaire in order to conceive a child! This is a tad more than violating. But I’m fearful too. Should I protest to any of these requirements, someone may be able to squash our adoption plans. Worse than all of this invasiveness however, is what Bob does after the “counseling” on safe sex practices. He stands up and grabs something from his desk drawer.

     “Our parting gift,” he says, and hands me…a condom.

     Gift? I’m too stunned to say anything. As he hands me the square, plastic package, I don’t know whether to laugh or fling it back at old Bob in disgust at the utter insensitivity and irony of being handed a contraceptive device. I’m already feeling emotionally battered and bruised from all that has gotten me here in the first place. There was last year’s failed fertility intervention. Then, there was the foster care option that I hoped would produce a baby that turned into pressure to take on a near grown teen. And now, we’re still in the thick of adoption requirements. I have felt longing, envy, sadness, impatience and self-condemnation for being childless in the first place. Both John and I have been subjected to endless interrogation and introspection. Now, to top it all off, I get to go home with a free condom—yippee!

    As John and I walk out into the near empty parking lot, we see only one other car, parked several yards away from ours. It’s a beat up, early model, dingy, white-colored Chevy Impala with its windows wide open. It’s unusual these days to see a car with its windows rolled down. But then I notice something moving inside. Actually, it’s not a something, but a someone—two someones!

     Inside the battered old car on the front, passenger seat is a boy of about two years old. Behind him, strapped into a car seat is an infant. The little boy watches us. I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. There isn’t an adult in sight. My initial, gut reaction is one of concern for these two babies left alone in a parked car. But I’m also angry, feeling subjected to two offending situations within the space of a minutes. After all we are going through, it just burns me up to know that people are so irresponsible as to leave babies alone in a car.      

      Frozen, I can do nothing for a few seconds, but stare intently at these children, wondering what God would have me to do. I begin griping to John about the obviously horrible parents these kids have, ending my monologue with, “And people like us can’t have babies, honestly!” But I don’t squeal on the parent or parents. Two women head for the car. The children become animated with familiarity.