Part 2
Resolving Conflict God’s Way
God relates with love and grace. His love motivates Him to forgive all offences and offer reconciliation. He offers His forgiveness as a free gift to all who will accept it by faith. His forgiveness has been made possible by the sacrifice of Christ, who took all the sins of the world onto Himself. Having taken our sins and paid them in full, He now offers the benefits of forgiveness and reconciliation to those who will accept Him by faith. Christ taking our sins and giving us His forgiveness is grace.
Relating Like God
God’s love and grace sets the standard for how relationships are to be lived out. He is our example and He calls on us to imitate His love and forgiveness. God resolves our sins through forgiveness, not retribution. He refuses to react to offenses and continues to offer His love consistently. God keeps on giving unconditionally, regardless of how we fail to appreciate His grace or obey His word.
The way God relates to us, is the way He has designed marital partners to relate to one another. When our partner fails, we can give forgiveness not revenge. We can refuse to react with anger and continue giving love. When we relate like God in our marriage, we are able to resolve our conflicts without damaging one another. We are able to use conflict to grow in our love and strengthen our marriage instead of tearing it down. Loving like God enables all of our relationships to grow and become more intimate as God designed it to be.
Godly Strategies for Minimizing Conflict
Marital conflict is inevitable, necessary and even beneficial if handled according to God’s word. In spite of its necessity, conflict in marriage is no fun and there are ways to minimize its occurrence and ways to minimize the damage when it does. Education, preparation and a commitment to love without conditions will go a long way to minimize conflict. When we become devoted to one another’s well being we are willing to compromise and make sacrifices that enable us to grow closer together in love.
Patterns – Timing and Issues
First, learn to expect conflict and look for a regular pattern relating to timing and issues that spark it. All long term relationships follow patterns, especially marriages. These patterns mark when times are good and when they are bad. Watch your own patterns and learn to predict when a conflict is due. Certain issues also spark conflict between marriage partners. While they are different for all of us, some issues are commonly involved in conflict.
Money
Money is the most common source of marital conflict; the amount made and spent, what it is spent on and who is in charge of making these decisions. It is easy to feel that your partner is selfish and spends money unfairly, emphasizing their wants more than yours. It is important to have an organized budget and decide where extra money is going to go. A priority list made by both partners can be used to make sure the money is used fairly. In today’s American culture we have placed major emphasis on materialistic possessions and this is part of the reason we conflict over money. As Christians grow out of materialism and into a committed relationship with the Lord, more of their ”extra” money is given to His work. Placing emphasis on giving to the Lord will free your marriage from some of the conflicts about money.
Sex
Sex is another area where most if not all couples conflict. For men, as a rule, sex is primarily physical and men usually desire sex more than women. For women, as a rule, sex is primarily an emotional experience related to romance. Women are sexually stimulated by romantic feelings while men are stimulated by sexual images. Neither of these is right or wrong, it is just the way God made us and we must learn to accept one another as we are. A husband would be wise to accept that his wife is sexually stimulated by romantic evenings and sweet words. A wife would be wise to accept that her husband’s body experiences a build up of sexual desire and he desires sex about every 3 days. By understanding each other’s needs, an agreement, plan and even a schedule can be worked out that works for both. When the two are committed to love one another, they find ways to accommodate each other’s needs.
Children
Finally, one of the most common areas of disagreement and conflict is in raising children. All of us were raised under different rules with different parents. Each of us has an idea about how to train and discipline our children. When our different ideas meet in real life, conflict can occur. It is imperative to examine our individual differences and reach some kind of agreement so that you can present a united front for the children. Children know when parents are in conflict and will use the differences to divide and conquer. A united front gives children a consistent word and policy to follow, eliminating inconsistency and confusion. When parents will pre-think parenting situations and develop a consensus plan to deal with specific disobedience or rebellion, they can be prepared to work together.
Summary
Marital conflict is part of God’s plan to grow us into a unified team. Conflict is inevitable because we are fusing together different backgrounds, different aspirations, different genders and every other factor of life. Conflict is good if used for growth and damaging if used to express your commitment to selfishness. It reveals our differences and old pain pushing us to find ways to compromise and express love through a commitment to do what is best for the other. It also brings us to see that only by taking the mind of Christ into our hearts and relating like God, can our marriage grow into blissful intimacy. Learn to expect conflict, use it to grow more in love for life.
