Category: Conflict

Someone once observed, “It only takes one person to produce speech, but it requires the cooperation of all to produce silence.” History has its share of corporate silences. The Holocaust, for example, will not be remembered so much for the extraordinary numbers of people murdered in gas chambers as it will be remembered for the…

One of the most difficult things you or I will ever face in life is admitting our own sins. That is especially true if our transgressions have been defined in specific terms. Admitting that we have hated another person is a particularly hard thing to do. The words I’m sorry are the two most difficult…

One of the most sinister strategies for justifying wrongful behaviors is a mental game that is prompted by the question, Who’s on top? The game board resembles a ladder. Every position on this ladderlike structure is relative to every other position. You can rise above another player’s position, or you can find yourself on a…

Both ways of being—at peace and at war—cast broad shadows on the way we view others. When I relate to another individual with a heart that is at peace, I see that person in a way similar to the way I see myself. I see him or her as a human being who has hopes,…

In Eden, before sin changed everything, Adam and Eve knew only one heart condition. Their hearts were always and only at peace with the Creator. They also were at peace with his creation, and with each other. In absolute terms, everything was right in those relationships. God provided for their every need. They lacked nothing…

This is about the time when most of us, dear reader, get up on our high horses in protest to challenge the notion that there may be something wrong with wanting something—with dreaming big. After all, in one way or another, we each subscribe to the concept of the great American dream. Disney built an…

A very real conflict is still going on in each one of us between our old Adam and our new man in Christ. The battle is being waged all the time. This is a good reason for being careful about picking our battles. A noble cause is certainly worth going to war over. Jesus fought…

Mistrust ignites more conflict than any other cause. Even when there are other mitigating origins for a conflict, suspicion is frequently hiding in the background. At some level, all serious conflict is about the truth and how people interpret it. And as a general rule of thumb, most individuals assume their enemies are completely lacking…