One thing conflict taught
me,
No matter my situational
lack:
It’s hard to fight
with someone
Who refuses to fight back.
Conflict that reaches loggerheads was always
destined to be transcended. Within interpersonal conflict, wisdom has a better
idea. That is, conflict between two people may be stayed when the conflict has
reached an important precipice – when one
refuses to fight anymore, but continues to engage communicatively.
What this person reaches when they refuse
to fight one more iota of a scrap further is a sense for heavenly love,
transcending the issue, the hurt, the lack of forgiveness and sensibility.
Suddenly what is seen is a way through that is both complex in its simplicity
and strangely encouraging for all.
So many times I have refused to fight
back I have seen the Lord work.
It’s like the thing least expected
occurs, and it is a shock. The person we’re battling with can never quite
understand why we have stopped fighting, and why we may even take their side,
not so much on the issue, but just to be on their
side – to understand. This is such a loving response it comes as pathetic to
the world. The world cannot reconcile it. Even our fellow Christians will
wonder what is going through our minds. But we can know that God is with us as
we refuse to fight. We are leaping over the impasse.
Instead of fighting we align to the
issues of truth that everyone can see.
We lose our partiality. We retain our
God-informed rationality and we trust it.
We are no longer on our side, but now
we are on the side of God. We see, no matter how much we deny it, our side of
the conflict is not perfectly abounding in truth. It is flawed as their side of
the conflict is, also.
When logic and reasonability finally
re-enter the crucible of conflict there is the scaling back of aggression, and
calmer minds come to be better connected with their true hearts because the
emotions have cooled.
It only takes one to begin the
process, and a calmer approach by one, whilst it isn’t guaranteed to work,
certainly will quell the flaming intensity of the forest fire in full blaze. By
refusing to fight back we pour a blanket over the fire and smother it from
receiving its inferno-fuelling oxygen.
***
One thing conflict taught
me,
No matter my situational
lack:
It’s hard to fight
with someone
Who refuses to fight back.
©
2014 S. J. Wickham.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.