Learning to Cope with Conflict

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by Joe Renfro, EdD

Someone has rather amusingly suggested a pastor spends his time in two ways: fifty percent trying to comfort the agitated and the other fifty percent to agitate the comfortable.  I don’t know, if that is an adequate description of being a pastor, but I do know that in every role in life people have to deal with conflict.” I used to teach about conflict in Quest classes back when I taught the Middle school, and it matters.

Conflict is part of life, and you can’t always avoid it. It can divide families, split churches, and lead to wars between nations.  Tension, anger, mistrust, even war are spawned by it.  It can be the devil’s most common and effective tool for creating turmoil in our lives.  One Wednesday back when I was a pastor at prayer meeting in s church I pastored we looked into what the Bible taught about contentions and how to resolve them.  Many shared their personal conflicts.  But how do you ever know how to cope with conflict, when, how, and if?

Conflict often revolves around differences of opinions between people, competition with people, hurt feelings, resentment, plus other roots of contention.  Aggressiveness and insensitivity can breed conflict.  Conflicts can be in respect to our relationships with others, but they as well can happen within us each individually.  Outward conflicts with others are often rooted with inward conflicts within ourselves!   In Jesus Christ we can learn to work with conflicts in ourselves, other, and situations.

Motivations are not always simple to analyze.  Romans 7:15-24 is concerned with the inner conflict of the flesh and the spirit in our souls.  The Apostle Paul described it so well, as he said, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very things I hate.” It is difficult at times to discern motivations, because we can sometimes do very selfish, sinful self-righteous actions and even the most godless acts in the name of God. This is what the people did who crucified the Lord Jesus!

Spiritually we each often experience the conflict between good and evil fighting it out in our souls.  Satan, the father of lies, stirs up conflicts personally and socially from the inner battles.  Tension between individuals, groups of people, even nations provide breeding grounds of the works of Satan, the Adversary of God.  The devil feeds on conflict!  According to the Ephesians 6:12 each of us is in a personal battle with the forces of evil.  It says, “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places.” 

Christ, who lives in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit, gives us strength and direction with which to cope with the wiles of Satan.  We find assurance, as we claim the promise of the Bible that “Greater is he that is in than he that is in the world.”  Still the battles aren’t easy!   We all sometimes make mistakes–fall, fail, falter, neglect to do what God has called us to do, and sin against Almighty God. 

How can we control conflicts and not have them control us? World statesmen deal with conflicts between nations, but we deal with more personal conflicts.  It helps to recognize that many conflicts are normal, expected parts of just living with ourselves and with others.  But conflicts don’t need to be destructive or permanent, as they can be positively resolved.  Conflicts provide opportunities to spiritually grow as individuals.  They can help us to learn to exercise our spiritual muscles.  Deuteronomy 31:6 says to “Be strong and of good courage.”

Conflicts are more than issues, as they are also determined by the personal characteristics of individual personalities. In order to work through them people need to listen carefully to one another and to seek to clear up misunderstandings. James 3:17 gives good guidance to coping with conflicts, as it says “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.”  And then it goes on in 3:18 to sum it up by saying, “And the harvest of  righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” When there is inner conflict, clear the perspective of the alternatives you face, evaluate the issues creating the tension, and seek to understand the reasons for the struggles within.  Often by resolving personal conflicts, there are fewer conflicts with others.

Conflicts can be personal or between people. Personal conflicts are within yourself, like when you are struggling to make a decision.  Sometimes it might help to list alternatives on two columns of paper.  Then write down the good and bad points of each.  This can clarify issues to help you decide what do. But then, they can be between people. I heard about a man who said “In my house, I make all the major decisions and my wife makes the minor ones.  For example, example, I decide such things as East-West trade, control of crime on the streets, the problems of welfare cheating, and the increase in taxes.  My wife decides the minor issues, such as which house to buy, what kind of car we drive, how much money to spend, and how to raise the kids.”

There are three types of conflict responses, that I want to observe.  One is the passive, one the aggressive, or other the assertive.  The passive involves just going along to keep the peace, while inside you are very much ill at ease, the aggressive involves fighting it out, while the assertive provides positive approach for working out disagreements. James 3:13 says that “Who is wise and understanding among you?  By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.” This would seem to be a more assertive way!

Conflict and the turmoil it produces can be very disruptive, but resolving conflicts can also help us grow.  God calls us to learn to work through our conflicts.  James 3:17 speaks of producing good fruits.  It often requires a pruning process.  It requires patience but also might requires work to work out many conflicts.  In coping with conflicts it is vital to remember James 3:18 that “the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”  We can be peacemakers, because we know the peace of God in Christ the great peacemakers who died for our sins that we might be reconciled to God.  In the schooling of our youth we emphasize the importance to cultivate this, not the progressive focus on revolution that has been so much our educational indoctrination!