Right. It's that fight or flight thing.
Right.
I've come up against a problem, and I'm either gonna fight the problem or I'm gonna run away from the problem. That's the. That tends to be our two responses.
Hello again, and welcome back to the Trim the Wick podcast. I'm Dan.
And I'm Becky.
And we are back with you this week. This is turning into a, uh, habit, isn't it?
It is. Every single week.
We love being with you guys, and we hope that you're enjoying this podcast. If you have anything you want to talk about of what we say, you can write me, [email protected] That would be awesome.
Awesome.
Well, hun we are going to talk about something this week and over the next few weeks that I believe hits everybody.
Yes. It's a foundational thing that every human on the planet deals with.
Yes. And it's something that happens in your home. It's something that happens at work. It happens with your children, it happens with your friends. It happens just driving down the road.
Right.
It is the fact that you're gonna get into conflict with people.
That's right. And there's a whole spectrum of conflict. Right. There's everything from your little just those little picking annoyances, to the, hey, I don't know if I need to quit this job because I can't stand working with this person. To the really big conflicts that lead to, you know, the stuff that's been on our news for the last few months with all of the wars around, you know.
Exactly.
Conflict is conflict.
Right. And, you know, if we were taking a college class or whatever, we would call this, you know, dispute resolution 101 or whatever.
And you have to say it in that voice.
You do. You do. I mean, uh, you get your little dispute resolution class.
And you can speak to that because you actually were a certified conflict resolution specialist.
Yes, at one time I did. And so, you know, the question is, you know, people are people. So why should it be...
That you and I should get along so awfully?
Exactly.
Bom, bom, bom.
There you go. So we're gonna rub against people because we have, Internally, we have our own things that we love and like and dislike. We have prejudices. We have, insecurities. So just living life, we're gonna come up against some things, and people are gonna rub us wrong.
Right.
And like I said, it's sometimes at home, sometimes it's at work. Sometimes it's just in the car. But it's going to happen. As we're looking at this - and this is something that happens all the time - I think this is an important topic to talk about because if it's not resolved properly, number one, you can be miserable, If it's not resolved properly, you can destroy relationship with it, lose friendships, lose your job, all kinds of things.
The consequences get really big really fast, don't they?
Yeah, it's one of those things. It's kind of like the little snowball where if you dealt with it when it's tiny, you dealt with it at the root, at the beginning, it doesn't turn into something that can literally destroy the city. So you have been offended. You know, let's start there. Someone has done something to you, hurt your feelings. Whatever it is, now, there is something that's boiling in you. The
switch has been clicked. Something was said, done, whatever it is, it doesn't matter exactly what it is.
And the neurons are all firing in your brain and the adrenaline's all dumping in your system, right?
And you're like going, okay, here it comes. Boom. Now, the normal response, the human response, is to just lash out. The human response is to attack back, scream, yell, fight, right. Or it is to the other extreme to run and hide.
Right. It's that fight or flight thing, right? I've come up against a problem and I'm either gonna fight the problem or I'm gonna run away from the problem. That tends to be our two responses.
So as we're looking at this and we're looking at we want to have a life that's abundant in Christ.
Mhm.
We wanna have a life where the Holy Spirit is guiding and directing us. We're seeing the world the way God would want us to see the world and live in it.
We want a life where we can actually walk in relationship with other people and not have to constantly be hitting them or running away from them, right?
Exactly. And so that being said, what do we do? What do we do in that situation? Because it's going to happen.
It is. And I think the first thing we need to do in that situation is remember who we are.
Mhm.
Because it doesn't matter how small or how big the thing is, right. We could be talking about somebody who cut you off in traffic, or we could be talking about your kid who's screaming, "I hate you" into your face. Or we could be talking about the co worker who is just gossiping and backbiting about you and it's hurting you in the workplace. We could be talking about any one of those
things, right. And your initial response to any of it, minor to major, is to remember that you are not just the sum total of your neurological firing and your adrenaline dumping into your system. That is not who you are in Christ. You have an extra element at play.
Right.
And the element that you have controls those other two things. Holy spirit in your life has the capacity to make you an overcomer, even over your own response.
Yeah.
And so in that split second, initial moment when the hurt or the aggravation or the frustration happens, you gotta take that moment to remember, I am not my own. I am not just me, I am his. And everything that he has access to, I have access to.
Yep. Well, and, again, Jesus told us, I'm going away. But the father was going to send the Holy Spirit to you.
Right.
And the Holy Spirit in you will be a comforter, uh, an encourager. He is going to guide us. He's going to convict us of sin. He is going to write God's law in our hearts and our minds.
Right.
But the other thing that we get to see is that holy spirit displays himself through us. And we call that the fruit of the spirit. Which, we just talked about that, you know, in our own marriages.
It's a great series, go back and listen to that one if you missed it.
That's right, binge it. Binge it. Binge it. Um, but we see where as the holy spirit works in us, that fruit is displayed through us.
Right.
One of the biggest things, self control. The thing that I believe would take over in those situations where you immediately stop before you allow your emotion to take over your mind, to take over your whatever it is.
Your physical response before you deck that person.
Exactly. And you allow holy spirit to first of all take over self control.
Mhm.
And then start working on you with the other things.
Right. And giving you the words to say and giving you the emotional de escalation that you need internally. Because, you know, it's a valid thing. Right? We do have emotions. We do have physical responses. It's something that's talked about very openly now. It wasn't so much when we were kids.
No.
But now It's become okay to talk about, hey, listen, there are these emotional responses, and a lot of them have to do with things over which we don't have a lot of control. They have to do with the way our brains are wired. They have to do with how our neurons and our electrical impulses in our brains fire. They have to do with how our hormones are regulated or dysregulated in our bodies, they have to do
with chemical imbalances. We understand now that there are a lot of emotional and physical things that come into play when we have conflict with other human beings. It just, it brings up things. But see, the one who created us.
Yeah.
Has control even over those things.
Yes.
Just because we, in our flesh, don't have control over it, he, in the spirit, can give us control over it.
Right.
And it's vitally important to remember that in the moment that when we're struggling and, you know, you recognize it when it's happening to you. Right. When you want to respond disproportionately to a wrong that has been done to you, or you want to respond violently, or you want them to make sure that, they know exactly where you stand and that instinct rises up in you. You recognize when it's
happening. And in that split second, when you feel yourself losing control, you shoot that prayer and you go, "God, help!"
Right.
I need your spirit. I am not in control of this right now, but I know where this ends. I know where an uncontrolled response ends. And it ends in broken relationships and it ends in escalated situations. And I don't want any of that.
Right.
So spirit help.
Yep. And, I think the question to ask is, "do I want retaliation or reconciliation?"
Right. we're gonna be exploring that more in another episode. But the way you get there... The way you determine that you would prefer reconciliation, is by first submitting yourself to the spirit, because that is always the heart of the father. Right? Jesus was sent here to reconcile man to himself. So that is always the heart of the father. And, um, we're going to be exploring that and really kind of unpacking how that works into conflict resolution in our next
episode. But your initial response has got to be one of submitting yourself first.
Okay.
It has to be because I can't seek reconciliation from you if I'm busy trying to harm you or trying to put you in your place.
Exactly.
Right?
This is the thing where conflict becomes a cancer to you.
Yes.
Because there's a lot of times when people hurt you or do something to you, they don't even know they did it.
Right. They're still going about living their lives and you're. sitting there stewing. Yeah.
You're the only one that's being negatively affected by it.
Mhm.
Because the other person just goes On their way.
Right.
And what happens, and I know what has happened in my life is sometimes I will stew on something not hand it over to the father, not move on.
Right.
Stew on it. Stew on it. Stew on it to where it then starts affecting me. almost to a point of sickness.
Mm hmm.
Because it actually will make you physically sick.
Yes, it will.
If you keep dwelling on it and dwelling on it. Well, then I need to find my misery partner. So now I have to...
And now you invite them into your misery.
I grab another person, and now I unload on them. And the original person, they don't know what happened.
And now there's two people that won't talk to them, and they don't know why.
Exactly. And now the conflict has expanded and grown, and you're still not any better.
Right.
You know, just because you have a partner that's gonna be miserable with you doesn't make you any better on the inside.
And it doesn't resolve the conflict.
And it doesn't resolve the conflict.
Again, science, uh, has now come out and said, hey, you know what? Unresolved conflict. We talked a little bit earlier about that fight or flight response. You know, the fight response can have very immediate physical outcomes on you, right? That flight response, or even the response to just stuff it down and say, I'm not going to engage in this conflict. I'm just going to go. I'm fine. It's okay. There's no problem here. That literally lies about it. You have been hurt. There is a problem here.
And just stuffing that emotion down, we now know, does store itself up in our bodies, and it expresses itself as cancers. It expresses itself as sicknesses. It expresses itself lots of ways. So neither fighting nor stuffing things down is helpful or brings resolution to conflict. But that is not to say that every single encounter that you have with another human being requires some long, drawn out
resolution process, right? Because a lot of conflict that we have can be resolved just in that initial conversation between you and Holy Spirit.
Right?
That initial conversation, if that becomes your go to response of, ugh, I am so frustrated, Lord, and I cannot. I just, uh. I'm so mad right now. Would you do something? You will find that very frequently, the do something that he does has nothing to do with correcting the other person. The do something that he does is he brings your emotions back into alignment with him by giving you forgiveness in your heart for the other person, by reminding you
that he loves them. And so you need to love them by drawing you back in and inviting you to throw your cares on him because he cares for you. And then you don't have to even go address the other person.
Yeah.
By reminding you that in the scripture, he invites you and says, hey, cast all your cares on me, because I do care about you. The one verse that's painted up literally over our back door, as a reminder, "The Lord will fight for you, you have only to be silent."
Yep.
Right. He begins to bring the truths of who He is into where your emotions are. And then this conflict that feels really big or feels really annoying that the other person may not even know anything about yet, doesn't need to ever involve them sometimes. And it's not because you stuffed it down, and it's not because you lied to yourself and others about it and said, oh, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. It's all fine. You went to the one who could handle the fact that it's not
fine. And who could give you peace and forgiveness and resolution to the conflict that was raging inside of you before it became a conflict that was raging between you and others.
Right. And I think looking at the Matthew 5 passage where Jesus is teaching a lesson on loving your enemies.
Mhm.
And he prefaces it by saying, hey, you've heard it said an eye for an eye, uh, tooth for tooth. If someone slaps you in one cheek, you turn on the other. You're not just saying, oh, I'm going to be a punching bag. But what he was setting up was this understanding of going, father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Mhm.
And what I need to do is I need to go beyond, or I need to let it go and let you take over, father, so that I don't have to live with the weight of this conflict that will do nothing but destroy me.
Right. The neurons are no longer raging in my brain, the adrenaline is no longer dumping into my body. But it's not because I denied that there was a problem. It's not because I ignored that there was a conflict with somebody. It's that I put it in the hands of someone who can actually do something about it. Now, that's not to say that there aren't going to be conflicts where you do need to go and actually work this out with the other person.
And we're going to talk about that.
Right.
We're actually going to, In the next few weeks, we're going to go into those things on, how to actually address a person that is attacking you straight on or has hurt you.
Right.
And it needs to be resolved. So we're going to talk about that over the next few weeks,
We will. But the more you become practiced at going first to the father and allowing the spirit to speak to you before you speak and respond, the more you'll find that a good majority of the interpersonal conflicts that you face can be resolved between you and the Holy Spirit, and nobody else ever needs to get involved and, it keeps that field of destruction so tiny.
Yep.
You begin to walk in a consistent, quick forgiveness.
Yep. You might be sitting there thinking and going, okay, so how do I do that? How do I, in the moment, do that? And it makes me think about when I was a manager at Disney.
Mm hmm. You had lots opportunity for conflict there.
You put 50, 60,000 people, long days, 100 degree temperatures, you're going to get some conflict, you're going to get some fighting, you're going to get some arguing. And many times I would come up on someone and they would just be going off, they'd be yelling for some reason. And usually it was like my hot dog wasn't here in time or something like that.
Right. Big life shattering events, right?
Like, let's ruin your whole day over the hot dog that took 30 seconds instead of 10 seconds. But one of the things that I would always do when people would be yelling at me is I talk softer and softer and softer. And as I was talking softer and softer and softer, usually the person would bring down their yelling.
Mhm.
To the point where they, you could actually talk. And it really makes me think of that passage of scripture where it's like, I didn't hear you in the wind, didn't hear you in the thunder, but I heard you in the still small voice. And that, I think is the key to this on when your emotions are raging, when you're coming up with every reason why and every reason you're justified.
Mhm.
Just take a second and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and go, okay, I'm going to take my cues from you, Holy Spirit. I'm not going to listen to my emotions right now. I'm not going to listen to my normal comeback.
Right. Even if it's a really, really, really good, comeback?
Sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just there, you know, it's an easy lob pitch.
It is.
But I'm just going to listen, Holy Spirit, I'm going to listen to you through all of this. I need to hear that still small voice. Now, that takes discipline.
It does.
That takes practice, it takes that beating your body in the submission. We talk about that with the christian walk. Paul talks about it, how we are to be training ourselves. It does take training.
It does. Sometimes it may take physically closing your mouth and turning away.
Yeah.
So that you don't spout off with what you want to say.
Which is something you and I used to do a lot when we were first married, when we were still trying to figure all this out, figure out our home and everything and how we were even going to interact with each other.
Right.
We literally would just kind of go, you know, you go that way, I go this way. We're going to take a break for a few minutes.
It's the same principle we use with raising children. Right? You know, we have four kids and so, sibling fights were a thing in our house. What do you do when they start going at each other? You separate them. Right? You just, you physically separate them until they can bring themselves down. It's the same principle sometimes as human beings, our flesh gets
away from us. But we have to practice submitting our flesh, our emotions, our physical responses, we have to practice submitting those to the spirit.
Right.
And he's really good at what he does, if we will let him.
Yes.
And he will. You know, there's a lot of talk these days about dysregulated emotions and things Yeah, that is the normal human condition. We are dysregulated in our responses because we do seek our own and we do stand in our own perspectives and want to see ourselves as justified. But it's really important if we're going to live this life in relationships with others, in our families, in our business,
in our friendships. It's really, really important that we learn that the flesh response is not the helpful one, in any conflict, that we need to learn to do that split second prayer and split second surrender and go, Holy Spirit, what have you got for
me to say or to do right now? And even if it means I have to humble myself and walk away when I really think I'm justified and come back and address this at a later time because I don't want my flesh to bring more destruction to this than there's already been.
Right.
So, yeah, I mean, it's a discipline. It is a discipline. And we just got really somber there for a moment. We brought it really to a sharp edge. But guys, we've got to get a hold on this.
Mhm.
As believers, because how we handle conflict is vitally important in the community of believers. We're watching broken relationships. We're watching friendships that don't last. We're watching churches that split. We're watching businesses that fail and fracture. We're watching marriages that disintegrate. And it's because we're not addressing conflict under the power and authority of the Holy Spirit.
Yep. And this is the thing that they asked Jesus, how will we know that they are your disciples? And Jesus response, it'll be their love for one another. So this is the gateway for, loving one another is being able to resolve conflict appropriately so that we are reconciling each other, so that we are able then to love one another.
Right.
Not just get along,
Not put up with each other.
Not, have first Baptist and second Baptist across the street, but to actually love one another and to reconcile one another so that this thing of conflict, when the world looks at us, they go, wow, you're different. I know that hurt you, but you're acting so much different than I would have.
Right. And it's because we have someone in us.
Exactly.
That gives us the mind of Christ, the capacity to forgive. And then if there is an issue that really does need to be addressed, we address it in the right way.
okay. Well, we would love to hear from you. What is your number one source for conflict? Is it work? Is it home? Is it your friends? Or is it church? Let us know.
Yeah. And then we'll be able to, as we're moving forward with this series, we can maybe tailor some of it to where the greatest need is, because, y'all, there's a lot of conflict out there.
Yes.
But there's a lot of answer to it in the word This week, we talked about what we do to make sure the problem isn't us. next week, we're gonna start addressing what we do and how we approach when the problem is between you and another person, how do you approach that? What do you do? What's the right way to bring peace into a broken relationship?
Well, thank you guys again. We love you. We'll see you guys next, next week. Okay. Love you. Bye.