Instinct tells us there are two ways to put a quick end to these nightmares: (1) stand and fight or (2) run the other way. It’s been dubbed the fight-or-flight response. But when the fight-or-flight option is seen as the only recourse, we’re caught in a classic catch-22. The fight response only increases hostility and raises the stakes. The flight option, on the other hand, is self-directed. Running away from conflict or ignoring it can have the unhealthy effect of driving issues inward. When the causes for conflict remain unaddressed, raw emotions continue to fester within. Internalized conflict produces people living in despair over dead or imperiled relationships.
The fight-or-flight options are a myth. People have discovered several conflict-management approaches that help to maintain civil order.
One approach is to simply look the other way. Don’t dismiss this without some prayerful thought. Patience is a godly virtue. In a culture that is quick to take offense, God’s people can learn to overlook the incidental bad habits and wrongheaded behaviors of others. Rudeness, for example, is never acceptable, but we can tolerate the obnoxious behaviors of some, instruct others, and offer positive models to those who may not realize they are offending us.
But some of the causes for conflict cannot be overlooked. What then?
Humankind has invented three practical intervention strategies to restore the appearance of peace and bring order to conflicts that have been close to erupting in violence or chaos. These strategies are negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. Without these tools the unbelieving world would soon slip into anarchy under the terrific weight of unresolved conflicts.
Negotiation involves trade-offs. Opposing parties agree to forfeit some claims in exchange for having other claims upheld. Mediation uses a neutral third party (a mediator), whose role is to make sure that the lines of communication are kept open so that acceptable terms for making peace can eventually be achieved. In arbitration, the hostile parties actually empower a neutral third party to settle the dispute for them. Thank God for civil courts and a justice system that can intervene when disputes and disagreements threaten the peace.
But God has provided another strategy that rises head and shoulders above human approaches for resolving conflicts. It is the only strategy that deals with conflict at the heart level. The Bible’s word for this remarkable option is reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
Reconciliation is a process. It involves guilty consciences and a simple admission that we have sinned. It ends conflict with genuine forgiveness and a resolve to work at maintaining a real and lasting peace. Broken relationships are healed. Differences are resolved. And peace and unity in Christ form the basis for returning a once-troubled relationship to its former health and vibrancy. Offenses are forgiven and forgotten as though they never occurred. Former enemies set their hostilities aside to find common ground for a meaningful and lasting peace.
Reconciliation is the strategy God used for healing the rift that occur – red when sin separated us from his loving embrace. Jesus came to earth with his Father’s plan to restore peace to our shattered relationship with God. He was driven by selfless love and came offering God’s full and free forgiveness to all sinners.
If you are seeking the high road to conflict resolution, don’t choose an option until you have prayerfully considered reconciliation. If you are sincere about ending the hatred and hostility, don’t settle for less. Reconciliation offers far more than any of the other conflict-management strategies. It follows the model God used in restoring your dead relationship with him back to life. And it is driven by the same selfless love that brought you back into his family.
Excerpt from Devotional Thoughts for Christians in Conflict.