Dealing with Conflict: Family

Dealing with Conflict: Family

You may have heard it said: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Which people are we more familiar with than those in our own family? While that adage, like all quippy phrases, does not tell us the full story about what life is like, there is a reason it entered our culture. It often rings true because we have only so much patience with the things that frustrate us before we lose our cool, so the people we spend most of our time with are more vulnerable to our less-than-ideal behavior. And on the other side of the coin, we are more exposed to their less-than-ideal behavior. So we often feed into each other, with one transgression leading to another until we find ourselves not getting along very well, if at all.

Conversely, sometimes we may not actually have a lot of open conflict with members of our family, and we realize that is a problem of a different kind. Because we care and do not want to face any upheaval, we ignore problems in our family, hoping they will go away or at least not get any worse. In some cases, that build-up of pressure eventually explodes, making the problem worse than it would have been if we had just talked about it in the first place. Or if we manage to hold ourselves together and an explosion is avoided, we still suffer because the unspoken situation creates a wedge between us, and we miss out on the opportunity for growth.

We have to speak up, not so we can feel superior or get revenge, but so we can remove the obstacles in our relationship and provide opportunities for forgiveness and growth.

Family can be so hard! Thankfully, though, we can look to Scripture for guidance in how to navigate such intimate relationships. The Gospel of Luke gives us some pointed instruction on how to approach conflict when Jesus says, “Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and comes back to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3–4). In just these few sentences, Jesus addresses both scenarios that we described above. Riling one another up without finding resolution and forgiveness is not okay. But it is equally not okay to let transgressions pass by with no comment. We have to speak up, not so we can feel superior or get revenge, but so we can remove the obstacles in our relationship and provide opportunities for forgiveness and growth.

When looking at Scripture for guidance in this, you may also notice that when the Bible talks about family, it is usually in reference to the “family of God,” which is the Church. This metaphor is used with intention. Christians are described as family because Christian relationships resemble the relationships we have with our family members. Because of this, the principles we read about how Christians treat one another can also be applied to our family. One noteworthy passage for our current topic is Galatians 6:10, which says, “as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.” A lot of relationship principles apply to all our relationships, whether inside or outside our family, but this passage reminds us that it is most important to conduct ourselves well with those in our own households. How can we expect to have good relationships with other people if we cannot handle the ones that are closest to us?

You may currently be thinking, “This all sounds good, and I agree with you, but how in the world am I actually supposed to do this? How am I supposed to work through the conflict in my family and help restore and deepen those relationships?” Living this out is not easy, and when there are deep fractures in a relationship, that makes it even harder. But the important part is to start somewhere. In addition to the instruction from Jesus that we discussed above—to address problems directly and always be ready to forgive—we should also put this instruction from Paul into practice: “in humility consider others more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). When you approach a family member with this kind of attitude, it does not leave room for holding grudges or doing things you know are intentionally offensive.

If you have questions about today’s article or would like to have a conversation with someone about approaching conflict biblically, feel free to reach out to us at experiencecc.com.