Lots of good comments on conflict. Many of them centered on what I would call conflict that doesn’t go anywhere. One reader called it “good conflict” and “bad conflict.” My make-up would tell me all conflict is bad (or maybe “difficult” would be a better word), but it’s what we do with it that makes it redemptive or not. The key to this is Marti’s second point: Connecting. We don’t fight to win; we don’t fight to bash; we fight to connect. Conflict that produces fruit is conflict that results in connecting, reconciliation (a new relationship) and change to both parties. Conflict that goes nowhere is just a boxing match with both parties returning to their respective corners to lick their wounds, having experienced no connection and no change (similar to what we are experiencing in American politics right now.)
In facing His conflict with us over sin, did God connect? Did He change? Did He ever. God’s main desire in making us was to connect with us. Literally to become one with us. The metaphor is marriage; the goal is intimacy, i.e. total and complete oneness. “…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). That is connecting on the grandest scale. (On a day when Marti and I celebrate 38 years of oneness, it’s a fitting reference.) And to do that, God had to humble Himself, take on the form of a servant and become like us in the flesh. He learned obedience through the things that He suffered to the extent that He actually became sin for us. He, who knew no sin, became sin, that He might declare us righteous through His own death and resurrection. It’s definitely a challenge to our theology to think of a God who changes, but the scriptures present it this way. This all-knowing God still learned things He could not have learned without becoming one of us. Knowledge is one thing; experience is another, and what God “learned” through experience is the same as what we learn when we face into conflict and become vulnerable to change that we might connect with others.
How do you befriend a gay person while thinking you are completely other than them (or the other way around, for that matter)? You can’t. How do you connect with the poor or the homeless without becoming like them – discovering your own poverty and homelessness? “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). How do you reconcile yourself with someone without connecting to what is similar in yourself? How do you connect with a sinner without knowing your own sin? You have to connect. As we were reminded in the last paragraph, Jesus connected with us all the way to becoming sin for us. Unbelievable. How far are you willing to go with this? As far as Jesus went?
As a kid in church prompted to memorize scripture verses for rewards, we used to all love John 11:35 because it was the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Talk about connection…
Conflict, connection, reconciliation, change. This is how it worked for God and no reason not to think it would be any different for us. How do you love without this? How do you function as a follower of Christ in the marketplace without doing this? I don’t think you can.
John Fischer The Catch 
Happy Anniversary – Even though I have never met you I feel like I know you both and I know in my heart and soul you have a wonderful marriage and I wish you a day and year fillled with lots of god’s blessings, love, joy and laughter! Thanks for blessing my day everyday with the Catch!
Let me add one clarification: “My make-up would tell me all conflict is bad (or maybe “difficult” would be a better word)…”
In my thinking, “bad” conflict is destructive, with one party so bent on “winning” that reconciliation, or even agreeing to disagree, as Lisa said, is not possible.
On the other hand, while good conflict may be difficult, as the two (or more) parties focus on listening and understanding each other, not only is agreeing to disagree possible, but so is reconciliation.
The way I see it, “bad” conflict is one of satan’s tools to destroy relationships and people. While God has provided good conflict to bring reconciliation. And that is where I see huge value in this discussion. I’m like John; I want to avoid conflict at all cost. The trouble that I have with conflict is in being able to express my point of view clearly so that there is the chance that I might be understood. When someone is blazing their verbal guns at me, my brain shuts down and I have no idea what to say or do. And I lost. But that’s another story.
If we could all learn to enter into conflict with a teachable attitude and being willing to listen and understand, then there is a chance at reconciliation. In a reasonable discussion my brain keeps right on functioning and I can express my point of view. Unfortunately, too many of us don’t realize that winning an argument is usually counter-productive.
At times there is no reconciliation in the conflict but for those that hear the conversation there is benefit.
I love what you said: “We don’t fight to win; we don’t fight to bash; we fight to connect.” I, too, try to avoid conflict, but this is a whole new way to be looking at it. Gives a real purpose to venture beyond our comfort zone. Connecting – of course.