Conflict

Make friends quickly with your opponent at law. .   Matthew 5:25  NASB

Make Friends– God reminds me that I need considerable improvement in the area of interpersonal conflict.  It’s not that I am an angry, hostile man. Most people find me congenial, friendly, and helpful.  That’s how I like to think of myself.  But God lets me see my deeper motives occasionally, especially when He wants me to learn more about submission.

Conflicts inside the family unit seem to be the place where God is most likely to turn on the spotlight.  Lately, this area of my life has been subject to real emotional turmoil. God is doing things with my life that I find exciting.  My confidence level in His care has grown considerably.  My writing engages me in a never-ending process of spiritual development, and I treasure this.  But yesterday I found myself in a dark place, surrounded by old fears and scars, trying to exert control over my circumstances.  I did not want to change.  I wanted to keep my comfortable relationship with my wife and my life just as it is.  So, instead of focusing on God’s purposes for me in these circumstances, I spent the day focused on how to control the members of the family. And all that did was create conflict.  Then God reminded me of a story from Genesis.

God gave Abraham a promise.  The fulfillment of that promise meant a great blessing to Abraham.  He was to have a child.  Through his descendants, he would become the father of many nations.  He would be remembered forever.  He would have special status.  The best part of the promise is that God guaranteed it.  Things couldn’t have been better.

But time went by and no child was born.  Abraham made some very poor decisions involving family relationships. Those decisions aggravated the tension in his household.  Finally, his wife felt she had waited long enough.  She reasoned that the promise to Abraham could be fulfilled just as well no matter who arranged the required offspring, so she talked Abraham into having sex with her slave in order to get the required child.  I can’t imagine that it took much convincing.  After all, Sarah and Abraham had already been through one sexual disaster (although Sarah was the one in the middle that time).  But the pattern was in place.  Sex made them wealthy before.  Maybe it was the answer this time too.  Genesis 16:2 uses the expression, “Abram [his name had not been changed yet] heeded to her suggestion.”  This is the same expression that we find in Genesis 3:17 when God tells Adam “because you have listened to your wife.”  This should give us a fairly good clue about the moral content of Abraham’s agreement.  As we know, the result was a mess.  It is always a mess when we try to “assist” God with our own arrangements.

Sarah did what I was trying to do.  She just wanted to take control of the situation and make it come out the way she thought it should.  She was not willing to wait for God.  Patience is a virtue that Sarah and I do not have. Fortunately, I have Sarah to show me where my need for control will take me.  God provided me with a role model of wrong behavior.

The most interesting part of this story is what the Bible does not say. After Ishmael is born, God stays silent for thirteen years.  Thirteen years of looking at the problem created by taking control of the situation.  Thirteen years of daily reminders.  Thirteen years of marital conflict.  Two women, one child, one father in the same camp cannot have been much fun. Jealousy, anger, blame, defensiveness, rationalization, denial—the list could be pretty long.  It doesn’t take much imagination to put ourselves in a situation where we have to face the consequences of sin every day for years and years.  Divorce does a good job of reminding us of our failures.  And I think God allows us to be reminded long enough to reach a point of total humility.  It took thirteen years for Abraham to say, “OK, God.  I see your point.  I made a real mess of this.  You take charge.  I’m ready to just follow.”

Actually, that’s what I want to say, right now.  Unfortunately, Abraham did not say that.  He still thought the El Shaddai God (the All-Powerful One) needed his help.  But that’s another story.

Thousands of years later, Yeshua gave us some very practical advice about conflict.  The comment is in Matthew 5:25.  In Greek, it literally says:

Be well-minded toward your opponent quickly,

isthi eunoon to antidiko sou tachu

The first words (isthi eunoon) are a present tense command.  They mean, “You do this right now!” Do what?  The second word is really the key to understanding this entire expression.  It is eunoon.  It comes from eu– a prefex that means “well” as in “well spoken” (eulogy) – and nous, the Greek word for “mind.” It literally means “to think well of” or “to be well-intentioned toward.”  We could translate this as “benevolent.”  But it is more than just action.  It is a word that describes the mental attitude of being a friend.

Unfortuately, Yeshua is telling us to have this frame of mind toward someone who is exactly the opposite of a friend.  Antidikois the word for someone who is against (anti) justice (dike), at least from our persepctive.  This is the one who opposes us, who stands against what we think is right.  This person is the one in conflict with my desire to have things the way I think they should be.  Yeshua says, “Think of this person as a friend.” Then he adds one other thought – tachu– quickly, swiftly, with haste, right away. Don’t debate the issue. Don’t rationalize or justify. Do it!  Do it now!

How can I possibly have a mindset of friendship toward someone who is in conficlt with me?  Yeshua is not asking me to behave as though this person were a friend.  That is external compliance to an ethical pragmatism.  That action says, “Well, I’ll pretend that this person is like a friend so that I can still get what I want without creating conflict.” Yeshua is not advocating duplicitous behavior.  His command goes much deeper.  “Be of a well-intentioned mind toward this person.”  Yeshua is talking about motive.  I am not just to treat this person as a friend, I am to really see them as a friend from my own view of the world, from my mental perspective.  And, of course, I can’t do that as long as I am only pretending this person is a friend in order to avoid conflict.  I must make them a friend in thought and in deed.

Friends get along.  Friends care for each other.  Friends support each other.  Friends stick together.  Disagreement between friends does not make opponents.  It makes repentance.  I never want to lose a friend over something I said or did. Friends are just too important.

So, Yeshua reminds me that once someone is my friend, I will have every reason to resolve potential conflict because the friendship is more important than my desire for control.

Yeshua’s insight is deeper yet.  I am still like Sarah.  As long as I want “justice” (my way is the right way), I will have conflict.  Yeshua tells me that I need a new mind to grasp the significance of making my enemies into friends.  That new mind cannot come from the old pattern of personal justice.  It must come from remembering that he says to me, “I no longer call you slaves, but I called you friends.”  I was his greatest enemy. I would not let go of my desire for personal justice.  I had to have it my way.  Yeshua lived what he preached.  He made me his friend in thought and deed, even while I opposed him. Can I do any less?

Sarah hated Hagar.  She never converted Hagar from slave to friend. Sarah’s personal justice created the travesty of self-control and that had terrible consequences for Hagar, Ishmael and Abraham.  And, of course, for Sarah.  Thirteen years is not a description of tachu– quickly.  But it is certainly enough time for God to let our own attempts at personal justice slap us in the face.  Without tachu we will probably travel a long road to humility.

Now I see that I must repent.  It is the proper word.  It is a word that means “a change of mind” – to turn away from one way of thinking and turn toward another way of thinking. It means that my worldview gets reorganized.  Conflict is simply a reminder that the real issue is inside me.  My opponent is myself.  There is no disharmony in God.  If I am feeling disharmony in my soul, it probably means I am out of sync with my Lord.  Better change my mind. When I decide that I must have it my way, I have forgotten the first and second simple principles of faith – 1. God is in charge  2.  God is able.

God invites me to get aligned with His purposes, not to realign His plan to fit my plans.  He also promises that if I allow His mindset to be my mindset, the world will be a very different place, a place where I find harmony in unity with my friends and peace in the process of making friends from enemies.  I really don’t want a thirteen year lesson over this.  Tachu.  Tachu.  Tachu.  Help me, Lord.

Topical Index:  make friends, enemy, conflict, attitude, Matthew 5:25