At some point in our relationships, we’re going to have conflict. It could be a disagreement over something small. It may be a huge fight. But at some point, conflict is going to happen. We know that the Bible urges us to have unity in our relationships with others. God’s power is best displayed in the unity of our marriage or in our unity with our local church body and with the worldwide church body, but what do we do in times of conflict? How can we handle conflict in a godly way and preserve unity?
First, we need to have a proper understanding of the word “unity.” Unity means “oneness” or “togetherness.” According to an article on Bible.org, “unity is not a general spirit of friendliness or camaraderie, nor is unity some common aim or series of aims. It is a product of the work of the cross.” We can’t have unity without the atoning work of Christ on the cross. It starts there. The work of the cross changes us. It reconciles us to God, bringing us back into unity with Him, and just as that unity is not of our doing, Christian unity in a larger context is not of our doing either. We need the Spirit working in us, in each of us, to bring about this larger level of unity.
Unity is NOT sameness or conformity. Paul uses the analogy of the body to talk about unity in the church. No one would say that parts of the body are the same. No one expects these parts to be identical. It is the fact that they belong to the same body, that they have the same “spirit,” which creates the unity among them. They are different. They have different uses and needs. They look different. They behave differently, but they are still united as a body.
Conflicts in relationships arise from our differences. We can’t expect people to behave exactly the way we behave, to think exactly the way we think, or to feel exactly the way we feel. We can’t expect our spouse to think or feel the way that we do either. The truth is that even identical twins don’t think or feel the exact same way. We know this is true, but it is still a source of frustration. This self-centered tendency to say “If this person were just more like me, we wouldn’t have this problem” is universal. I think we’ve all felt this or thought this at one time or another. I know that I have.
In my marriage, my husband and I often don’t see eye to eye. We are opposites in a lot of ways. He sees the world as more black and white, while I see numerous shades of grey. He makes decisions fairly quickly, while I want to weigh out the pros and cons and look at things from all sides. I’m an emotional person, while my husband is not. On the surface, it seems like we could never be in unity, and oftentimes when we come into conflict with one another or disagree on how something should be done, it feels like we could never be in unity. But God isn’t expecting us to be the same, He’s expecting us to work together.
This is the art of compromise that is so important to marriage. When we each give and take, when we take the time to talk it out, we can come to a place where there is unity in our approach, unity in our goal, and unity in the path we’re taking to get there. We can agree to disagree on the details but remain united in our plan/purpose. We can have conflict in the moment, but we can remain unified in our relationship.
But what do you do when compromise is out of the question? What do you do in those moments where unity seems to be completely impossible? I wish I had a good answer for these questions. They are the questions I’ve been struggling with most in my marriage. I think the answer lies in Paul’s instructions to live at peace with all men so far as it depends on you.
I can’t control anyone else in this world. I can’t control what they think, what they believe, or what they do. I can only control myself. I control my response to conflict. I control the thoughts I allow into my mind. I control the emotions I feel and how much I allow them to influence my behavior. So, as far as it depends on me, I will stay in unity. That means when we just can’t agree on something, there are a few action steps I can take to maintain unity from my end of the equation.
1) I’m going to defer to my husband on an action plan because he is the head of the household.
I know this probably isn’t a popular position to have. There are a lot of feminist voices out there decrying the entire “head of the household” structural system. But God’s Word says that my husband is the head of the household. That doesn’t mean he rules with an iron fist, but it does mean that the responsibility for decisions lies with him. I’m speaking here of decisions that involve the two of us. In areas of my personal walk with God or decisions I make that are just about me, I have the freedom to do whatever God leads me to do.
Early in our marriage, my husband and I chose to follow God’s plan for our marriage. We determined early on that when we disagreed on an outcome, my husband would have final say on what we do. I get to voice my opinion, but ultimately his decision is final. Sometimes that decision is to do it my way. Sometimes it isn’t.
Having this decision made BEFORE conflict had an opportunity to arise, makes it easier to handle the conflicts when they come up. We know who has final say, so at some point the discussion/argument over how we’re going to handle a situation has to end. When my husband makes his final decision, that’s it. It’s a done deal. It also means that I release responsibility for the outcome. I don’t have to worry over what might happen. I can trust that my obedience to this established structure for our marriage is God’s will, and being in God’s will means I am in unity.
2) I’m going to tell God exactly how I feel, turn over the situation to His control, and trust that He will handle it.
It’s pointless to lie to God. He already knows how I feel and what I’m thinking. Saying it out loud or acknowledging it in some way during my prayer time frees me from the endless worry loop and negative thinking that I can get stuck in from time to time. If I seriously disagree with something, I let God know why I disagree and what I think should happen instead, but then I turn it over to God.
Ultimately, God is the only one who knows every single time a choice comes up what the correct choice is. He knows the right thing to do. He’s also the only person who can change my husband’s mind if my husband is about to make a wrong choice. Obviously, at that point, all my powers of persuasion have been exhausted, but God’s have not.
Now that doesn’t mean that I can just point the finger at my husband and demand that God change him to be like me. God doesn’t honor prayers like that. But what I CAN do is go to God with the disagreement, lay out the different paths we want to take, and ask God to speak to us. Sometimes, this results in God changing my husband’s mind. Sometimes, this results in God changing my mind so that I can see the value in my husband’s plan of action. Either way, turning it over to God allows Him to work on each of our hearts to bring us back into unity.
3) I’m going to declare unity with my husband and unity in our marriage.
Sometimes I do this out loud. Sometimes I simply end my prayer this way. After I have laid out my opinion with my husband, after I have taken it to God, I affirm that I am in unity with my husband and that I am committed to unity in my marriage. The words we speak are powerful. They affect the way I think and feel about a situation. The Bible tells us over and over again that the words we speak are important. So I feel that it is important to speak words of unity over my marriage, even if I don’t feel unified.
Affirming that I am in unity with my husband, turns my thinking from the never ending cycle of “he should just do it my way” to one where I have let it go and am refocused on the rest of my day/life. Whenever negative thoughts about the conflict arise, I repeat my statement of unity. I remind myself that I have given this to God and that it is no longer in my hands. Satan loves to attack us with negative thoughts. That’s his area of expertise. If he can catch us in a cycle of negative thinking, he can keep our focus on the problem and keep the strife building up.
Satan’s entire goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. When we allow his negativity to influence our thoughts and our emotions, we hand him the ammunition to destroy our unity and damage our relationships. We have to take those thoughts captive to the truth of God’s Word. We have to focus on believing the best of the other person and God’s ability to work all things together for our good. When our focus is in the right place, we have unity again, and Satan loses his foothold in our lives.
I’m sure there are many more ways to keep unity in our relationships even in the face of disagreement, but these are the ones that I use and the ones that work for me. It all comes down to being obedient to the Word of God, taking responsibility for our part of the conflict, and submitting to God’s plan for our lives. That’s all I can do, and I think God honors that.
A Beautiful Mess 