on family, and conflict

From The Doubtful Guest, by Edward Gorey

OK, remember my last post on Andy Stanley's series Future Family? Well, part 3 is a killer. People, if you ever have conflict in your family -- and that's about all of us, I think -- I urge you to listen to this. I have extracted some of it here for those of you who haven't the time, but really, it's only about 40 minutes long, and would be so well worth it (the entire message is here).

As I'd written in my last post: "However difficult or painful things may be, most of us do want our families to work, to be held together by love and peace, not compulsion, fear or obligation. For many of us who are parents especially, we want to do well by our children, we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of our pasts".

Pastor Andy begins: "The only thing we probably all have in common when it comes to family is conflict. When you win an argument in your family, you don't really win anything. You feel good because you out-argued the other person, but there's no win and so the conflict is never fully resolved.

"Conflict in family is like conflict nowhere else; it is so complicated, so emotional, it just seems to go on and on and on... And part of what makes it so complicated is we don't process conflict the same way as individuals... Some of us are "peacemakers"; peacemakers won't even argue [though there are real issues to resolve]... There's "the sulker"; they're just down... Then there's "the stuffer"; that's the person where [you ask] 'Is everything ok?' 'Yes. Fine'.

"Then there's "the litigator"; you're like the best arguers; you always win, you're never wrong... Then of course there's "the screamer"; they're just people who have to yell. If your family of origin was where everybody yelled, chances are you married one of these other types of people, [though] probably not a litigator, 'cause they can get the volume up... And do you remember the first argument you had? You yelled and your husband or wife looked at you like, "Demon, come out!" And your words weighed a thousand pounds; you just crushed them...

"Even though there are many version of people and approaches to conflict, there's really only one source of conflict in family. If everybody in your family can wrap their brains and their hearts around this one single idea, the tension, the tone, the conflict level in your family will decrease, almost instantaneously.

"To help us explain it, I'm going to call upon Jesus' brother, James. He begins with this question: "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" If you were to ask [your family members], immediately we'd go into blame. It goes back to, "If everybody would just sit down and do what I tell them, there would be peace in the family"... As long as you blame others for your unhappiness, you will always be unhappy.

"Every single time you blame, here's what you do: You take your happiness, and you hand it to the person that you're in conflict with. As long as you are caught in this death cycle of "If you", "If you would stop", and "If you would start", "If you, if you...", you are basically taking your happiness and you are handing it off to the person you're in conflict with. And you're saying, "I can't be happy until you do something differently".

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?" (James 4:1). [James says], "Ultimately, don't your fights and your quarrels come from something that's inside of you?" See, I want to say, "No, the cause is because of something inside of them". [James says], the source of all your fights and quarrels is something inside of you -- you have a desire in every single conflict, a desire in you that is spilling out on the people around you. There is a conflict within you that is creating conflict with people around you.

"You desire but do not have, so you kill" (James 4:2). Every time there's a conflict, you want something. Sometimes there are things that you want so badly, that you are willing to hurt the people you care about the most in order to get what you want.

"Some of us have seen parents kill their relationships with their kids because their kids wouldn't do what the parents wanted. Some of you left home at 18 or 19 because you could not stand to be around your parents. But if I were to interview your parents, the bottom line would be that they wanted you to be something, they wanted you to behave a certain way, they wanted you to do something... and there was something you wanted your parents to do, or stop doing, and they just wouldn't, and it killed the relationship.

"We've seen men power up and destroy a woman's self-esteem. We've seen people belittle and criticise people to the point where they have no confidence in themselves; shame their children till they're almost afraid to be around them; we've seen women who have such high expectations of their daughter that their words just destroy what's going on in the heart of their daughter...

"When you want something from someone, and you want it bad enough and you lose perspective; in your desire to get what you want from them, out of them; oftentimes you want something from them so you'll feel better, prouder, because you think you'll be happier or more fulfilled... When we want something bad enough,we have the potential to destroy that other person.

"You've seen it so many times, and unfortunately, some of you are in the process right now of doing that very thing. And here's how we defend it: "But I just want the best for him or her. But I just want my wife to reach her full potential... And you lie to yourself, because it's not really about them, it's about you...

"The whole time you're arguing, fussing nagging, belittling; the whole time you're going in their room and doing things, the whole time you're leaving those notes, you're telling yourself, "It's them, it's them, it's them". And James says, "No, it's you, it's you, it's you".

"You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight" (James 4:2). If, in the middle of a conflict, you can pause and take a deep breath and recognise , "Part of what I'm feeling right now is I'm not getting what I want" -- that is a game changer... As soon as you own even part of the problem, the temperature level, the tension decreases.

"You do not have because you do not ask God" (James 4:2). Did it ever occur to you that before you went storming down the hall, or you fired off that note... Has it occurred to you that before you go extracting something from someone else for your benefit, to pour out your heart to God and say, "God, there's something I want from my husband, my kids, my wife, my father, my mother... and I'm not getting it"...

"Usually when I pray for these people, it's like, "God, would You please make them do the stuff I think they should do". James is going, has it ever occurred to you that what you want, you aren't getting, because you're trying to squeeze it out of someone who doesn't have it in them to give you?

"When you bring these things to God [first], the conversation goes better, because you begin it knowing, Part of this problem is, I'm not getting what I want and I'm beginning to understand that part of what I want, you don't even have to give, and here I've been trying to wring it out of you...

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (James 4:3). If you will allow God to really grapple with you at the level of what is it that you want or expect... And at that point you go back to God and say, "OK, I don't think she has it in her to give me that... He's not going to turn out like I want him to turn out... We always said you were going to be a doctor... All that stuff we do with kids...

"[James says] Have you taken this to God? And can you take 'No' for an answer? Can you own your part of it? And then perhaps begin the conversation at a different place, refusing to hand them the responsibility, the pressure, to make you happy...

"Who in your family is suffering because you aren't getting your way? Who in your family feels the pressure to change, to behave, to start, stop, work harder... Who is feeling that pressure? You have some 21, 24-year-old kids still trying to make you happy, and that's your issue, not theirs. Who out there is suffering because you refuse to own the fact that this has more to do with you than it does with them.

"And what could you do today -- through a letter, an email, a phone call, a lunch, an appointment -- to begin to take that unnecessary and inappropriate pressure off of them. In the ideal family, in the family where men and women really are seeking to know God and follow Christ, there is a pause before the storm... There is a come-to-God moment...

"God do in me what You need to do in me, before I try to squeeze out of the people I love something that only You can give me to begin with".