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I sailed past my roommate’s desk on my way out the door, briefly glancing at a sheet of paper she had left on top of a stack of notebooks. I froze. I read her first sentence again. Then slowly I turned back, dumped my books and lowered my body into a chair, absorbing the meaning of the four word sentence at the top of Connie’s paper.

I hate my roommate, Connie had written. Chunks of an uneasy puzzle thudded into place: Connie’s increased reserve, the growing unfriendliness of our house mates, the sudden silence when I entered a room where they’d been talking and laughing with my roommate. . . .

The context of Connie’s statement was almost worse than the statement itself. Last year I had taken the same class she was taking now, so I recognized the assignment on her desk. Students in the class were required to write five “I” statements describing five personal characteristics by which they identified themselves. So that sentence meant my roommate disliked me so much that she tied her sense of personal identity to her hatred of me. What had I done? How could our relationship have changed like that?

Connie had been a freshman the year before when she started regularly attending the evangelistic Bible study I led. I had loved her, nurtured her, prayed for her, and to my delight, she had become a sister in Christ. Now I was stunned and shattered, like the victim of a car wreck. Ashamed and hurt, I told no one about the incident.

I should have told our I-V staff worker about it. I was president of the University of Iowa InterVarsity chapter, and we met regularly. Ben could have shown me Ephesians 6:10-20 and explained that my struggle was “not against flesh and blood (so, not against Connie), but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” He could have helped me see that Satan tries to thwart the kingdom of God by undermining and destroying relationships.

He could have explained that conflict is no surprise to God. God expects it, and so should we. In fact, when handled in a godly way, conflict is the unlikely gateway to the committed, satisfying relationships of true Christian community.

Light in the darkness

This truth is hidden from us because we usually see conflict handled in ungodly ways, according to the principles of the kingdom of darkness. People explode, accuse, get back and abuse. They destroy and cripple one another.

Ignoring conflict out of shame or fear, like I did, merely allows the sin to develop underground. Usually one or both people start gossiping to gain sympathy. Then their alienation from each other grows, and they start causing division in their group. Grievances may collect and pressure may build until somebody explodes, blowing bits of relationship to the wind. Once these things happen, no one may ever be able to repair the damage fully.

Instead, God wants us to deal with conflict according to the principles of the kingdom of light. “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace,” Paul said in Ephesians 4:3 (NIV). The Bible provides several principles for kingdom peacemaking:

Overlook nonessentials, but confront patterns that destroy. Some matters are petty and not worth bothering with. “Fools show their anger at once, but the prudent ignore an insult” (Proverbs 12:16, NRSV). Other situations cripple or destroy people and ministries. These must be confronted.

Ask yourself, “Will this matter five years from now? What will be the consequences if this pattern continues?” For example, will it matter five years from now that your Christian roommate always forgets to replace the cap on the toothpaste tube, even when you remind her? No. It may be annoying, but it’s not deadly.

Will it matter five years from now that she is sleeping with her boyfriend? Yes. She may be establishing a life pattern of caring more about what a man thinks than about what God thinks. That’s a trap (Proverbs 29:25; Galatians 1:10). Her disobedience now will affect her future intimacy with God and her ability to listen to him. Giving in to pressure for sex from her boyfriend (or his giving in to pressure from her) establishes patterns of communication and behavior that will cripple or kill intimacy and trust in a future marriage.

Apologize and right the wrong if you are the offender. If you have wronged someone, or if you realize someone is offended with you, Jesus taught us to try to make the relationship right. Restoring relationships is so important, in fact, that you should not give God your offering until you have attempted to reconcile with the person you offended (Matthew 5:23–24).

Sometimes all you need to do is apologize or explain a misunderstanding. More serious matters require restitution (Exodus 22:1–16). Stolen property must be returned. Damaged property must be repaired or replaced. You must do whatever you can to right your wrongs—unless taking action will cause more pain and trouble for the other person than leaving the matter alone.

If you realize someone is upset with you, and you don’t know why, ask. If he or she won’t explain, then you still know you’ve done the right thing. Your responsibility ends, and his or hers begins.

If the person explains, and you realize the problem is something you can’t control (like his or her jealousy of you), then back off. Again, you have done the right thing, so your responsibility has ended.

What if you apologize and offer to do what you can to right your wrong, but the other person refuses to accept your offer or your apology? These actions and attitudes, too, are beyond your control. You cannot make another person do what is right (forgive you or accept your offer). You will just have to accept his choice and forgive him yourself for that choice, yet remain willing to apologize and right the wrong in the future if an opportunity comes.

Confront privately. Disputes with believers and unbelievers are handled differently, although both begin with the same first step: go to the person who has wronged you in private, keeping it just between the two of you. (There is an exception to this rule I will deal with later.) If an unbeliever refuses to listen, you will have to allow natural consequences to take over, live with the situation and forgive, or go to civil authorities if the matter is serious.

Jesus taught that when one believer has sinned against another believer, the offended one should go to the offender privately to talk it over, keeping the matter just between the two of them (Matthew 18:15–17). If the offender refuses to listen, however, the one offended should come back with one or two other Christians to mediate and act as witnesses. If the offender refuses to listen to them, they must take the matter to the church. If he or she refuses to listen to the church, then the church as a body must discipline the offender by refusing fellowship.

People who are not directly involved in a sinful situation may also have to confront other believers sometimes. “My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression,” Paul taught, “you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted” (Galatians 6:1, NRSV). Mature, concerned believers need to intervene when the enemy traps people in sin.

All of this takes time. Helping to untangle someone who is caught in sin can be a slow process, and so is working through a dispute between believers. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2, NIV). You may have to confront another Christian privately several times, and then confront with a mediator or witness several times more, before it becomes clear that the other person is refusing to listen by neglecting to change his or her ways.

Use an advocate to confront when there is a power imbalance. “The Bible says that if someone sins against you, you should confront them in private,” my mother once said, “but if I tried to make a protest to my parents or my older brother when I was small, the whole world came down on my head. I got crushed.”

When one person in a dispute has all the power, a private meeting is unfair—and sometimes, dangerous. For my mother as a child, it was emotionally dangerous. For the New Testament slave Onesimus, it was life-and-death dangerous. If Onesimus had gone unprotected to his master Philemon to work out their differences, he might not have survived the private meeting. So Paul acted as his advocate, sending a letter to Philemon to read before he met with his returned runaway slave.

Check your attitude. The goal is restoration, not punishment. A student leader in one InterVarsity chapter began sleeping with his fiancée. After being confronted, he resigned and moved in with her. People in the chapter talked about the couple and tried to manipulate them through cutting remarks. When that didn’t work, they shunned the pair. “The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth,” an observer told me later. A second chapter leader faced a similar problem. A small-group leader and his girlfriend were sleeping together. The executive team bent over backward to avoid gossip. If anyone asked an exec member, “Is So-and-So sleeping with his girlfriend?” the leader said, “We’re dealing with that,” and refused to discuss details.

Executive team members confronted both the small-group leader and his girl friend individually. (She was also in the chapter.) But the couple continued spending nights together. So two members of the exec confronted the leader together. He resigned, and the couple stopped attending meetings. The leaders decided not to take the matter to the whole chapter, but rather remained friendly with the couple in public and grieved over them in private, continuing to pray and to discourage gossip.

After several months, the couple confessed their sin to their church pastor, stopped sleeping with each other, and reconciled with the chapter leadership. An attitude of grief can restore where an attitude of condemnation cannot.

Seek wise counsel. Although the Bible teaches that we should discuss our disputes privately, it also advises us to seek wise counsel. “The way of the fool seems right to him,” King Solomon tartly remarked, “but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).

Talking the situation over with someone else will be either helpful or sinful depending on our motives and choice of a counselor. If we choose to talk to a friend who will take our side in a disagreement and play the game of “ain’t he awful?” then we’re looking for a gossip partner, not a true counselor.

I must be willing to have my own sins and my own foolishness pointed out before I charge in and confront someone. I may be part of the problem. People need to choose a mature, older Christian to advise them—someone who is not a peer, who can provide an objective viewpoint as a third party, and who will agree to keep everything confidential. The best counselor will be someone who exhibits the fruit of the Holy Spirit in speech and behavior—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

When I’ve been angry with someone, it’s usually because she did or said something that hurt me—she may have laughed at my ideas, or put me down in front of other people, or perhaps wasn’t there for me when I needed her. Figuring out how and why we felt hurt just before we reacted with anger is usually the key to sorting out the real issues, and a third person, a wise counselor, can help.

Other sources of anger are frustration and fear. If you aren’t feeling hurt, you may need to figure out why you’re frustrated or what you’re afraid of. Our hurt, frustration and fear often flow from sin. James wrote that when Christians quarrel and strive against each other, it’s usually because of jealousy, covetousness or selfish ambition (James 4:1). Maybe I envy the attention, talent, relationships, possessions or position someone else has. Or maybe I’m trying to prove that I’m better than another person, or that I’m right, and she’s wrong. If I’m feeling hurt because another woman is popular with the men in the chapter, or because I can’t get my roommate to think the way I think and feel the way I feel, then I’m pushing a power struggle. Instead of confronting, I need to be repenting—and maybe apologizing.

Pray at all times. Whether we’re confronting or mediating, bleeding or binding wounds, exploding with righteous indignation or eating crow, we need to be praying (Ephesians 6:18). We are easily deceived, both by the enemy and by ourselves. We never see the whole picture, never have all the answers, never do all the right things. Yet God is faithful, and he answers prayer.

Although I failed to confront my roommate gently to find out what I had done to make her hate me, I did pray. A year and a half later, shortly after Connie became engaged to a guy named Steve, she came to me and explained that during our year as roommates, she had been jealous of my relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Mike. She and Mike had dated for a few months the spring semester before I became chapter president. Mike had been president at the time, and he had spent a lot of time preparing me for my future responsibilities. We were close friends.

Mike transferred to another university, and I took up the president’s role. We wrote to each other, and whenever I received a letter from Mike, I made a big announcement and told Connie all his news. He was writing to her, too, and I was unaware how insecure she felt about their relationship. Still, I was insensitive. And Connie interpreted my stupidity as deliberate malice.

Handling
Criticism

Poem:
Unforgiveness

Who takes
Initiative?

How to
Create an
Affirmation
Sandwich
 

More Light

I was so thrilled with our reconciliation that I went and told the story to Jane. Jane was a new Christian who I had invited to be my prayer partner at the beginning of that school year.

“I knew all about it,” Jane said. “When I first came to I-V, Connie told me such bad things about you that I didn’t want to be your prayer partner when you asked me. But I didn’t know how to say no. After we started praying together every week, though, I got to know you and realized there had to be some mistake. I knew you weren’t the kind of person Connie said you were.”

I was horrified. I felt like I’d just watched a baby disappear under the wheels of a semi-truck and survive unscratched. Satan had used Connie and me to try to destroy Jane!

My rift with Connie probably damaged the leadership and ministries of our chapter. After talking with Jane, I understood a few other mysteries, like the subtle way certain I-V leaders withdrew from me. These were the people Connie hung out with. If I—or they—had obeyed Scripture and taken up the hard work of reconciliation, our chapter would have been stronger. Looking back, I see that God was more faithful to us than we were to him. His power and protection can break through the barriers that divide us, easing the tension in our relationships and giving glory to his name.