We were created to have communion with our creator.
Yes.
We were created for relationship with him and with one another. And so our enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our relationships.
That's right. Well, hello again, and welcome to the Trim the Wick podcast. I'm Dan.
And I'm Becky.
And we are back with you again. This week we are continuing in our series of, we've got a problem, which is dealing with conflict, and that's something that every person deals with.
It is. So, last week we talked about the first step is dealing with our own selves. Right. Me first. And making sure that our initial response, that first hit of conflict, that our initial response is one of self control, one of allowing the spirit to be in control of our emotional response and our physical response so that we don't compound the problem right from the get go.
And it's that thing of being able to, in the moment, check yourself, you know, in the moment, being able to then allow the Holy Spirit to work through you so that you can then properly deal with the conflict and not make it worse, cause a bigger problem for yourself, get yourself thrown in jail, you know, or, bring other people into it and cause just a field of destruction. So this week we are going, this is time. Yeah.
This time it's time to actually respond. Now you've got your responses submitted to the spirit, and now it's time to respond.
Now, you have gone through the process. You've gotten yourself under control, and you're going to now go, I've got to now confront the other person, or I've got to step up and speak up in the moment. And this is the tricky part.
It can be, yeah.
Because, you know, I can see, especially with my own life, where I've been, like, attacked or had a situation where it's like, I've been able to take that deep breath, breathe, pray to God. God kind of work what he does in my life. And then I start speaking, what do I say? And what is my goal?
How do I say it? Right?
Exactly.
How do I say it? Because you used the right phrase. What's my goal here? We talked last week about our goal in submitting to the spirit. First is to keep us from making a bad situation worse and to check ourselves and make sure that we're not blowing something out of proportion that wasn't even meant as an offense. That same part of submission to the spirit needs to go into our goal setting for this relationship that we're about to respond to.
I think there's a lot of times when you're in a conflict, you don't even think about the goal because you're letting emotion take over or whatever, which.
Is why it's so important to have these things understood before you ever get into a conflict.
Right, right.
Because when you're in the moment, you're not processing that quickly generally.
Right.
So you need to have an established principle that guides your life so that when you enter into places of conflict because you know they're gonna come, you already have a plan for what matters to you. Right. It's the same thing in. When we had kids, we started talking when they were little about what our goals were in raising them, in their education and in the opportunities we provided them, so that when they were six years old and ready to start school, we weren't going, oh, no. What did we do?
Right.
You have to think of these things ahead of time. You have to establish, okay, there are known things that are going to happen within a human lifespan. What are my values? What are my principles? What are the goals that are going to guide my life so that they guide my responses? I've already thought about them before. I'm in the moment.
And, you know, there was a big thing back in the. My gosh, was it the late nineties or whatever, the, you know, what would Jesus do? Movement.
Right.
You know, and it was always like, you know, don't make a decision without finding out what would Jesus do in this decision? And there is biblical grounds for that where, you know, we are to become more like Christ. Paul tells us that we should be crucifying ourselves daily, that we are then becoming more christlike, to be a part of his sufferings, but also be a part of his glory. So when we start looking at this, okay, we're in a situation. We're in a conflict. We want to be more like
Christ. So we need to understand, how would Christ handle this?
Right, because he promised us that in this world, we would have troubles, right, exactly. He told us that there was going to be conflict with other people.
Wait, wait, wait. He told us we were gonna have troubles. I thought when we come to Jesus.
That everything was like, I know, rainbows and butterflies, right?
Sprinkles and everything.
No, he promised us that there would be conflict and that we would have troubles and that the world would, in fact, hate us.
Yeah.
Even as the world hated him. We know that if he knows that ahead of time, and if he told us that ahead of time, that there is in the scripture a, principle for us to really set our feet on, and walk firmly in. That's going to guide how we respond in those conflicts.
Going back to what you were saying about preparing ourselves, you know, this is why it's important to study the character of God and who God is, because then you know how to react in situations. You also know how to lean on those characteristics and adopt those characteristics as your own.
Right. So that it's not just some recipe that you follow and, oh, no. you're in a situation that doesn't fit the recipe. What do I do?
Right. Because Christianity is not an if then statement.
No, it's not.
Everyone has an individual life, and just because it worked for you this way does not mean it's gonna work for me this way.
But foundational character traits and foundational principles are adaptable to every situation.
Exactly. And that's why we need to understand the character of God. And then we are clothing ourselves in righteousness. In the righteousness of God. One of the things that we see all through scripture, and this is, I think, where we're going to lean on this when it comes to conflict is God's capacity for reconciliation.
Right. It's his goal. You used that phrasing before. Okay, we've got ourselves in check. Now we're ready to respond to the other party in the conflict. What's my goal? God's goal from the very beginning of humanity has been reconciling us to himself.
There is so much through scripture, and, we could go on and on and on, and maybe that's a book to write of, God, examples of reconciliation throughout scripture. The biggest one that we want to lean on right now is that what God did when he sent his son, he sent Jesus to die on the cross to reconcile us. Now, what does that mean? And we're using this word reconciliation. And Jesus reconciled us to the father. What does that word reconcile mean?
Okay, so to reconcile is to bring back to the first state. Right.
Oh, wow.
To restore back to the original perfection when we were first created, when it was Adam and Eve in the garden.
Yeah. Going all. Now when we say all the way back, we're going all the way back.
We'Re going all the way back. Right to in the beginning. And in the beginning, when God created man and woman in the garden, humanity walked in perfect relationship with him. Yeah. We were exactly who we were created to be, behaved in the ways that we were supposed to and were in relationship with God with no rift, no break, no distance. It was a unified relationship in the beginning. Well, then sin entered. Right. And we fell and that relationship got broken.
But the scripture tells us that because God knew that that relationship was going to be broken before the foundation of the world, he sent Jesus to restore, to reconcile, to bring humanity back to that unified, perfect relationship with him, who we were created to be, and he was in our lives, who he is and was meant to be as our creator, our father.
So we get that understanding of where Paul was talking about, how the first Adam built this conflict because of the sin that he committed. But then when the second Adam, Jesus, when Jesus came, that because of the work that he did and because of his obedience and sacrifice that he made, we are now able to go back to God like the first Adam was before the conflict.
Right? And you see there's lots of New Testament imagery around what that looks like, right? When Jesus dies on the cross, the veil in the temple is torn from top to bottom. Separation, that thing that separated man from God, was demolished in that moment. And in his resurrection, we receive new life. Right. We are made new creatures in Christ. So in reconciliation to the father, we are restored and renewed back to right relationship as it was meant to be, as originally intended
by the creator of the whole thing. And so when we have a rift in our relationships, a broken relationship, a conflict, our goal is not, should not, should not be to place judgment on the other person. Our goal should not be to enact punishment on them. Our goal should always be consistent with the heart that we see in the character of God and in the character of Jesus Christ. So that same heart should be flowing through us, through Holy Spirit in us. Right?
That heart of restoring the relationship back to wholeness.
Yeah. Because ultimately, the idea in resolving the conflict is to bring it back before it was, before the conflict began.
Right. As if things had never broken at all.
This is where having that heart of reconciliation, stepping into the conflict, stepping into the moment now of confrontation with the understanding and the character of. I want to restore our relationship to what it was before this even happened. And I'm going to let that guide me. And the actions that I do, the things that I say are not to cut you. They're not to get a leg up. It's not to win the argument.
Right. Because we've already talked about.
Exactly.
There are no winners in this unless we both win together.
We're trying to come together and reconcile so that our relationship can go back to the way it was before the conflict even began. And that's what God does through us. That's what he will do if we allow him to do it.
So what does that look like? Practically? If I have taking that first step of submitting my initial response, my emotions and my physical, to the spirit, I've got that in check. And now I'm ready to respond to you. And I have already laid the groundwork that if I am in Christ, then I must respond the way Christ would. And the way that he responds is always with a heart of reconciliation and restoring of relationship. If that's the heart I'm coming to you
in. Now, what does that look like with those first words that come out of my mouth?
So I think, you know, other than telling you, you need to say this or you need to say that.
Right. Because we're not into formulas.
No, but I think where you begin is you begin with truthful statements of what the conflict is actually about and what actually hurt that was said or done, and be able to put that out in a non accusatory way so that you can explain yourself or the other party can explain themselves without getting angry, because they might not have taken the time to prepare themselves. So.
And again, we've discussed this. They might not realize that what they did caused any hurt.
Right.
They may be completely clueless to the situation. So if we come at it initially with accusation, now they're on defense, and they don't know what just hit them, and that's not okay. But if we come at it with truthfulness and say, hey, I'm kind of hurting here, can we talk? It brings it to a conversation about putting you both on the same page of trying to understand.
Yes.
Instead of, I need you to be accountable for where you hurt me.
Because, again, you're not looking to win this conversation. What you need is understanding. What you're trying to do is to open up the dialogue so that you then can work things out.
Right. And I think it's really important what you started with that. It needs to be truthful statements.
Yes.
We're not gonna candy coat that we're hurting. We're also not going to expand this and say, you did this last week, and you did this the week before, and you did this the week before that. We're going to stick right to the truthfulness of in this moment, in this instance, this happened, and I'm hurt, or I'm angry, or name your emotion, whatever it is, I want you to understand where I'm coming from, and I need to understand where you're coming from.
Well, and that's the second very important thing, is listening and listening to that other person, what they are saying not what you perceive that they're saying.
Oh, and that's hard, isn't it, to get rid of those filters?
Yeah, because you're already at an elevated state. Again, this is why in the initial moment, you ask for the holy spirit to come in to give you self control, compassion, peace, and all this. So now when you're talking, you're now sharing truthfully back and you need to listen to what they are saying, not what you think they are saying or.
What you think they ought to be saying. And they're not saying, yeah, well, yeah, right.
Again, that's the putting an expectation out there, but, yeah.
So in a conversation whose goal is reconciliation, we're not ever coming at it with accusation. No, we're not ever coming at it with an expectation of how the other party ought to respond, what words they ought to say. I'm coming to you with what I need you to hear, and I'm going to speak truth to you about where I am, but then I'm going to let you speak truth to me about where you're coming from and the truth from your side may be. I had no idea that hurt you. I had
zero intention of that. In fact, I didn't even know you were hurt. And a heart of reconciliation can receive that. Extend the forgiveness that we've already been ready to extend. Right, right. Cause you've already prepared yourself and not sit there and filter it through. yeah, sure. Right. You didn't know. How could you not know? That's not reconciliation.
Right.
If we're not able to receive what somebody else speaks to us truthfully, then we need to be very aware when we start feeling that scoffing or mocking or pushback or defensiveness rising up in us, we need to really check and go. Wait, wait, wait. Am I still holding on to reconciliation or do I want to be right? It's hard to hold on to for the whole conversation. Even if it's your foundational principle, even if it's what you go in wanting.
Well, because there are times when you're going to be in a conflict with a person who does not want to reconcile.
Right.
And we're gonna talk about this in the next episode. But there's gonna be times when you're talking to someone who doesn't wanna reconcile and they're just gonna be pushing your buttons. And this is where you're just gonna have to rely on the holy spirit to just keep you in check, to stay truthful, to not look, to give you insight
of what's being said. You know, again, you're not trying to project something onto them, but you are listening truthfully to what they're saying, asking for discernment, asking for Holy Spirit. What do I say? What do I say in rebuttal of this? Or what do I say in defense of myself,
even if it gets to that point? But again, starting off truthful, listening to the other person, going back to the first thing, keeping yourself in check, again, because this is going to be a constant thing while you're doing this conflict is keeping yourself in check because the devil really wants to destroy you and everybody around you. So he's going to be shooting some fiery darts at you in the middle of this.
because, again, guys, we're going to run back to Genesis real quick. Again, we were created to have communion with our creator.
Yes.
We were created for relationship with him and with one another. And so our enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our relationships.
That's right. So he's going to be attacking us. So there are going to be things that are going to creep up. There's going to be those things that are going to be brought up from past. But stay focused on what you're dealing with right there in front of you.
And that my goal in this is to restore our relationship so that what has started to break between us is mended. That's my goal in having this conversation with you. I don't need to be validated by you.
No.
There's a lot of talk out there now that, oh, in a conflict, the other person needs to validate you. No, they do not. They do not need to validate you. They do need to hear you. But your responsibility in the relationship is to come at it with a heart of reconciliation and maintain that goal. The scripture says, insofar as it is up to you, live
peaceably with all men. So sometimes, like you alluded to, sometimes there will be those relationships that are not going to be reconciled, are not going to be mended, because the other party is not interested in that. But insofar as it is up to you, you hold out that reconciliation as your goal, and it guides how you speak. It guides the verbiage in the language that you use. It guides where and how these conversations take place a lot.
Yeah.
If my goal is reconciliation, I am not going to blindside you publicly in front of people where you're going to be embarrassed, even if you've hurt me. I'm going to find an opportune time when we can have this discussion privately. I'm going to take those moments like we talked about last week to separate myself so that my emotions come down and I don't cause a huge scene because I don't want to cause any more harm. I want to mend.
Third thing, when it's all said and done, you have to forgive completely. That is, to me, one of the harder things of the whole process. Because you were truthful, the other person talked, you were able to talk it.
Out, you listened and received what they had to say.
You came to understanding, you come to an understanding. Everyone's together now. The next step is for you to forgive completely so that you are now completely reconciled. Because then it's
just like it was before the conflict. So if you don't do that forgiveness, if you don't allow that complete forgiveness to happen at the end of the fight or the end of discussion or end of whatever the conflict, if you don't have that complete forgiveness, you can't go back to way it was because you're always going to be holding onto some part of the conflict. This is not for them. This is for you.
Right. Because if you're always walking in relationship with somebody just kind of that, walking on eggshells, feeling that, when's it gonna break again? Yeah, when's it gonna break again? When are they gonna. Then you begin walking with that person, not in a heart of reconciliation, but with a very critical eye. Yeah, I'm looking for the next time you're gonna offend. I'm looking for the next problem to rear its head. Well, if you're looking for that, guess what you're gonna find.
And the thing is that next offense is gonna be easier and easier and easier to come about because you're just on high vigilance for it. For us, the thing that we have to do is to forgive. You know, I think, again, we're talking about what Jesus did to reconcile us to the father. What is the thing he does? He's on the cross, he's being crucified, he's been beaten, he's been ridiculed, he's shamed. And he looks at the father and says, father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do. Father, forgive them. It's teaching us even when the other party doesn't know what they're doing, you've got to forgive. You've got to be able to forgive to move on, to reconcile.
That's exactly right. It's got to be that complete and total forgiveness, or else we can't be restored to one another. But what if a week from now you annoy me in the exact same way that you annoyed me this week, what do I do with that? Do I have to do it all over again?
Yes. So it makes me think of this passage in Matthew 1821. When Peter goes up to Jesus and he says, lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him up to seven times. I love the one day a.
Week I gotta forgive this guy.
Yeah. Okay. You know, let's put this, let's make it real. Jesus, do I have to figure this guy one day a week? Is he gonna keep doing this over and over again? Jesus responds to him and he says this, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven, which is a lot.
That's more than a year of weeks. You want to forgive this guy?
You're forgiving him like twice a day now. But I think what Jesus was telling us is that this idea of forgiveness, this idea of reconciliation, it is so important that we really just need to make it a number that's so out there that we even forget that we've forgiven him.
It's a perpetual process.
It's just a constant process. It is just something that we're going to be doing. And, you know, to go to that comment, you know, I do a knucklehead thing this week and next week it's the same conflict. Well, if I was forgiven last week, we were reconciled. Like the conflict never happened. So now this week it's like the conflict never happened. Now, the difference is that if this is a habitual thing that might need to be addressed in the character of the person or whatever, if it's an.
Unrepentant sinning behavior, right. Not just a knuckleheaded, I didn't know I was hurting you.
Right.
There's a difference there.
Then you know, we're talking about the conflict, right? And that, there should be forgiveness that just flows. It should just flow from who we are. That's hard.
It is, because we do have memories. And it's one of those areas where we talked about last week that in Christ we are a new creation. We do have the capacity to have the mind of Christ, the forgiveness of Christ, and the power of Christ to love. Even if we've been hurt. We rely on that when conflict comes into our lives. And it's the only way that we're going to reconcile with one
another. And it's the only way that we can participate in the mission of Christ, of reconciling mankind to the father.
Yeah. Because there is a bigger picture here.
There is a bigger picture.
And that's why it is so important that we deal with conflict appropriately. So next week, we're gonna talk about what do you do if you're in this situation and it blows up and.
You'Ve gone with a heart of reconciliation, and they are having none of it.
And what do you do when all, everything falls apart, and how do you move forward? And we're gonna talk about that next week. Thank you so much for listening this week. We just, again, are so appreciative of you being with us. If you have any questions or comments or anything that you would love to share with us, you can email them to us at danathew. Two five seven.com.
So we'll see you next week.
All right, love you.
Bye.