Making Important Decisions and Healthy Conflict Resolution!
It’s amazing how closely related making important decisions and bringing conflict to a healthy resolution are. I would like to suggest that the way we make decisions can reveal a great deal about how we deal with conflict. Some people make decisions impulsively. They go with how they are feeling at the time or perhaps the strongest feeling they have in the moment. There are occasions when impulsive decisions turn out to be good ones, but more often than not they lead to frustration, regret and maybe even guilt. These folks tend to handle conflict in the same way. They go with their gut, sometimes consciously but more often than not reactively. If they are feeling angry, they come on like gangbusters – its their way and that is the only valid option. End of story. Case closed. Conflict settled. The only trouble is it is not settled – the conflict just goes underground where it becomes more dangerous, destructive and poisonous to a relationship.
However, anger is not the only feeling. It can be fear, insecurity, worry, anxiety, sadness or a host of other feelings that are just as real as anger but may not have the same fire or passion. In these cases, retreat is often viewed as the way to settle conflict or to avoid making a decision. It is just buried. Trouble is it is not dead and buried but just buried and resentment and bitterness often grow and flourish when an issue is “buried”. One of the most dangerous things we can do is pretending to take the “high road” in a conflict when in fact we are simply burying the issue for the time being. Ultimately, burying an issue feeds a toxic poison in the heart and spirit that can seriously damage and even destroy a relationship. Likewise, avoiding making decisions, sooner or later catches up to us and when it does it is not a pretty sight. Usually there are deep and profound regrets, perhaps even disillusionment and aching sorrow.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Detective Joe Friday approach, “the facts ma’am, just the facts”. In place of the heat of emotion we find the cold, calculations of logic. The bottom line and/or end result is what matters – nothing else. If too much emotion makes the impulsive approach to decision making dangerous, the absence of emotion makes this approach equally dangerous. Our history is filled with examples of needless and tragic suffering that have been inflicted upon people because the human element was left out of the decision-making process. Sadly, the same can be said of families. Unfortunately, in families the damage is can be compounded because a false moral judgment is often used to support the “facts”. In conflict resolution, when this fact only, approach is used logic too easily becomes a club to validate one side’s position.
There is an alternative. I find it applies to both important decisions and conflict. When I am at my best, I use it faithfully, however, I must also candidly admit, there are also times I seem to forget it completely. Having said that, I prayerfully strive to make it a strong habit.
1. Step back and identify the issue to be resolved or situation to be decided. One of the great truths I learned early in my ministry is this: what at first seems to be the issue is rarely, if ever, the real issue. Both head and heart are needed to identify the real issue.
2. Pray about the real issue or situation. I am NOT talking about some empty pious pronouncement like “God show me which way to go or what to do”. Rather I am talking about lifting the situation or conflict before God as completely and honestly as you know how to and asking God to open your heart to God’s will on the matter. Then be quiet and listen and be open to what you will hear. God will most certainly speak to you. Probably not in a voice like we hear with one another in conversation. And probably not in the time frame you expect. But God will speak to you. Maybe it will be an idea that comes to you “out of the blue” (I suspect one of God’s favorites). Maybe it will be a word or phrase you keep thinking of. Maybe it will be a “image” of a time from your past. I think there are virtually limitless ways God can speak to us. Our job is to be faithfully listening and to be patient. Remember waiting, and especially waiting on God is a great virtue in the message of our scriptures.
3. Let God’s message to you begin to re-shape your thinking and feeling on the matter, whether it is a decision to be made or a conflict to be resolved. Live with it, listen to it, write it down, read it, embrace it, and finally act on it.
When I follow this process, I find I make better decisions and conflicts are resolved in healthy ways. I think you will find it to be so as well.
Grace and Peace, John