FEATURED GUEST: Mark Driscoll
If you’re married, you’ll have conflict. You cannot avoid conflict because marriage is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person, and both you and your spouse are imperfect people. As my wife Grace and I write in our book, Real Marriage, 1 sinner plus 1 sinner cannot equal 0 conflict.
Every home accumulates trash, so we must take it out often. Failure to do so stinks up the entire home. Sin is like trash, and every home has it. Repentance and forgiveness are how a couple takes their trash out.
You will sin against your spouse, and your spouse will sin against you. When this happens, you will fight. Couples who claim to never fight are either lying or living completely passionless, independent, parallel lives that are so emotionally distant that hurting each other is virtually impossible.
The question is,
Will you fight well to the glory of God and the good of your marriage?”
The key to having a good fight that ends in reconciliation rather than a bad fight that ends in bitterness is to learn to fight as friends and not enemies. The following five rules of engagement are offered to help you fight to the glory of God and the good of your marriage.
- Decide if your spouse has committed a sin. If so, you have to decide whether or not you are going to say something, overlook it, pray for your spouse, or just wait for a more opportune time to talk about it.
- Know how you deal with the conflict. People respond to conflict with a “fight, flight, or fright” instinct. Fight mode creates a harsh start to a conflict, which quickly escalates when someone accepts and heightens the conflict in an effort to bully, punish, and/or “defeat” their spouse. Those who choose flight respond by retreating, withdrawing, and avoiding conflict. Some people experience fright, where they simply freeze, have a hard time thinking on their feet, and get stuck. Knowing how you and your spouse respond to conflict will help you to know how to lovingly engage each other when frustrated.
- Before you fight, stop to pray, asking God to be in the midst of your fight. Invite Jesus into the midst of your fight and rely upon him to control your tongue and help you fight for the marriage by attacking the problem, not the person.
- Do not use fighting with your spouse as a release valve or lightning rod. If life has you frustrated, you will be tempted to use a good fight with your spouse as your release valve or lightning rod and let your anger devolve into sin by attacking them. Do not do this. Find something else to do to relieve your stress productively, such as a workout, and find a godly friend of the same gender to listen and ground out your storms.
- Sometimes a couple may need to agree to disagree—or get a referee. Sometimes a couple simply cannot come to an agreement on an important issue, and it affects their oneness and unity. In such circumstances humble servants need to ask whether or not the issue is really worth holding their ground on, or if in love with a clear conscience they can defer to their spouses. If you think that the issue is important enough to retain your contrary position, you may need to seek outside authority, such as a pastor or biblical counselor. This should be a rare occurrence in resolving conflict. In short, when all else fails, get a referee to make the call.
In the end, the key to having a God-glorying fight is reconciliation with our spouses, not bitterness and prolonged conflict. From our own experience, Grace and I believe that these five rules of engagement will help you have God-glorying fights as conflict arises.
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FEATURED GUEST: Mark Driscoll
Pastor Mark Driscoll is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington and is one of the world’s most-downloaded and quoted pastors. His audience—fans and critics alike—spans the theological and cultural left and right. He was also named one of the “25 Most Influential Pastors of the Past 25 Years” by Preaching magazine, and his sermons are consistently #1 on iTunes each week for Religion & Spirituality with over 10 million of downloads each year.
