The Cure for Conflict

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come
from your desires that battle within you?
—James 4:1

Conflict, like death and taxes, is unavoidable. Nations rage, neighbors feud, siblings strive, lovers quarrel, and churches fight. One zigs, the other zags. Life is full of dissonance. What can we do?

One sure way to temporarily conciliate another is to lose—give in. And some would argue that humility and submission demand it. But God-fearing men and women aren’t meant to be pushovers. They seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and not peace at any cost. “The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving” (James 3:17).

Furthermore, no one wins when one party always wins. Winning under those conditions is a wasted, Pyrrhic victory.

Antagonists can dig in and defend rigid (or shifting) positions and try to wear one another down by argument and contest of will, or one can pull rank and insist on surrender, but no one gets to agreement either way. As Samuel Butler said, “He that complies against his will is of the same opinion still.”

When all else fails we can beat up on one another—verbally if not physically—like the lawyers who, when they found themselves on the short end of a debate with Jesus, resorted to name calling. (“We were not born of fornication,” they cackled, clearly implying that He was [John 8:41 NKJV].)

Or we can do it James’s peaceable way. Consider his counsel: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:1–3).

“What causes fights and quarrels?” Good question. James gets to the root of the problem. Conflict comes from our “desires,” a word suggesting “something that satisfies.” Underlying all conflict is this hidden factor—one’s personal interest and longing for satisfaction.

People are bundles of needs, wants, hopes, dreams, fears, and ambitions that are doing battle within them, fighting for satisfaction. It’s these crosscurrents of personal concern that put us on the road to conflict with others. When the pursuit of our own interests is blocked by others’ pursuits of their own interests, we become frustrated and conflict develops. (Consider, for example, what happens when Young Husband comes home seeking silence and solitude and encounters Young Wife, whose most intelligent conversation all day long has been with a two-year-old child!)

This is why arguments are almost never about the subject under debate. Underneath the conflict is the covert factor of personal concern. These concerns are the interests that motivate people; they are the silent movers behind the positions we take.

Therefore the first step in conflict resolution is temporarily to set aside the surface problems and the positions we’ve adopted and try to get in touch with one another’s underlying concerns. As Paul said, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4–5).

That takes a bit of doing. We have to peel away the outer layers of perceptions and emotions until we get to the heart. Ultimately the resolution of any conflict lies not in the conflict itself but in people’s hearts.

And that means loving one another—putting ourselves in the others’ shoes; trying to see the merits of their case. It means forgoing blame, not holding them responsible for the problem. It means sending “I” messages rather than “you” messages—talking about ourselves and how we feel rather than what the other has done. It means “believing all things,” rather than putting the worst interpretation on what the other side says or does. It means refusing to pout or stonewall or walk out. It means apologizing when we get out of hand.

It means asking questions and listening actively and acknowledging what’s being said, asking the other party to spell out carefully and clearly exactly what is meant, requesting that ideas be repeated if there is ambiguity or uncertainty, and repeating what we have heard the other person say, all of
which can lead to understanding.

Once we understand one another’s bottom-line concerns, we can begin to invent options for mutual gain, collaborating in a hardheaded, side-by-side search for solutions that will benefit both.

“But,” you ask, “what if the other party won’t dance and we’re denied and left wanting?” (see James 4:2). For some that’s an invitation to “quarrel and fight” and even to “kill.” (Most killings are not premeditated but rather crimes of passion, deeply regretted after the fact.)

James has an unexpected answer: We should ask God to meet our needs His way (4:2–3). Rather than take matters into our own hands, it’s far better to ask God to supply what we must have and to ask with sincerity— “Not my will but Yours be done.”

It does no good to blame others or brood over our plight. Rather we should talk to the One who knows our deepest needs long before we become aware of them and who cares about us more than we can imagine. We can tell Him about our anger and hurt, our fears and frustration; He can handle any emotion.

But we should then ask Him to meet our needs His way, for, as James would say, we should not ask “with wrong motives.” But when God meets our needs, “he gives us more grace” (4:6). Frustrated desire becomes an open door to more of God and an opportunity to have more of our needs met than we could ever imagine.

To satisfy our interests apart from God is a serious matter! Follow James’s argument: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’ ” (4:4–6).

God is like a jealous husband who longs to satisfy the deepest desires of His bride. All she has to do is ask. Perhaps He will give the very thing desired, or He may, out of infinite wisdom, substitute another, better thing, but His solutions are always the best solutions of all.

But when we fail to ask and insist on satisfying ourselves in ways other than His, we are like a wanton, adulterous wife who will not come to her mate with her needs. Or, to pick up on James’s mixed metaphor, we’ve made friends with the world, since self-assertion, and not simple dependence on God, is the secular way of satisfying one’s needs.

Since, therefore, we belong to a loving, caring Lord, we should

submit . . . to God [since our circumstances are His will]. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [Though he would entice us to fight for self-interest at the expense of another, he has no defense against faith.] Come near to God and he will come near to you. [He responds lovingly and patiently to our needs.] Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. [To insist upon our interests is a serious sin for it produces “disorder and every evil practice” (3:16).] Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. [Self-assertion is no laughing matter!] Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up [an unequivocal promise!] (4:7–10).

Coming to a Father who delights in us and who gives us dignity is the added dimension that books on conflict resolution seem to miss. Perhaps their authors do not know God and do not know that He longs to give His children more than they could ever get on their own.

Taken from Seeing God, ©2006 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.