Conflict in Brotherhood – Episode #850

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Conflict in Brotherhood
Episode #850
04/02/2023

Walk and talk with John Enslow
Embracing Conflict: How Conflict in Brotherhood Can Help Us Grow and Heal

Today I want to bring you something that a brother and I were discussing and I really feel like it’s a key. We were talking about conflict in brotherhood and there was an amazing thing that was revealed. I know that conflict is never fun. I know that conflict sometimes is avoided. People will pacify things or avoid things that caused conflict, or simply just not say anything, and I end up using it as a thing to swallow, and then it turns into something that festers. That’s just never healthy and never good. And I have a different perspective on conflict today.

Conflict sometimes is the very sandbox that God is developing and working that into your life so that you can deal with things from your past. So if you have a brother who triggers something in you and there’s a problem and there’s conflict and you deal with it in that situation with that brother. It’s an amazing thing because you can sit there in that moment and it’s a safe sandbox. You’ve got a brother, you’ve got something that is controllable in this amount of time and in this amount of situation and you can deal with things that are maybe from past, from childhood or from a long time ago. And you’re able to face them and deal with them, and not only resolve the conflict in the moment, but resolve some internal conflict, and the internal story that may be in our hearts and lives.

To me it’s beautiful that the Lord will bring up over and over and over again different things that trigger us, different things that hurt us, different things that wound us. Not because He’s wanting it to be difficult on us but because He’s wanting us to face things that are holding us back. Things that are, those little mental barriers that prevent us from really entering into true freedom, and experience of the joys and the adventure of life. Because we have these things are constantly speaking against our experience of life and of Him.

So if He brings you a situation that… I know personally, I’ve been on a trip with a really good friend and we had some conflict that happened and we instead of avoiding it, instead of stuffing it, instead of resisting it, we kind of leaned into it, faced it, dealt with it in the moment. And I realize that there was something so much deeper that each of us were experiencing. There was something that was from childhood, a past wound, that had sat there so long and now this situation triggered it.

Even though the situation wasn’t exact, there were elements of it that triggered it. But it was a safe place to deal with that and when I dealt with that, and when he dealt with that, we were able to deal with something that was not only just in the moment, but also from the past. We were able to see, “Oh yeah, this is a wound I’ve been caring for a long time that I’ve not dealt with.” And the Lord and His love, and His compassion, and His desire for me to walk in wholeness and holiness, He basically created a sacred space. A sacred conflict so that I could deal with it and I could go and look at it head on with this brother.

I actually had someone to assist me in it even though he was a part of the conflict. Even though he was the triggering element of the conflict. I was able to do this with a brother. I was able to face and focus on this and with a brother. So I wasn’t doing it alone and we both were enriched and brought into a deeper place. So I don’t avoid conflict in relationship and brotherhood, because I have found that the benefit of it is usually pretty amazing.

I know another situation where I’m in a small group and in that small group there was things that were going on and I was assigning value and collecting data based on what I was hearing and seeing and I left the situation and I had my heart hurt. And so then I, instead of pushing it down, I literally said “OK, let’s deal with this!” And I brought it out to this brother and I said this is kind of how I’m feeling and we were able to resolve it. We were able to deal with it. We were able to face it. And the data that I had in my head, the story I was telling myself was actually not the story at all. There wasn’t any reality to it, and it was just because I had brought my judgments, my opinions, my wounds, my past experience to a situation and wrote a whole storyline.

So if I had not taken that storyline to that brother, if I had not taken that wound, that hurt, that situation to that brother, I would not of been able to deal with it, find out what the truth was, find out what the reality was, find out what the actual situation was. And then it was completely turned around into something really beautiful where I was vulnerable and I was being honest and then they felt that connection of the fact that I was not in defense. I was not trying to be accusatory. I was literally bringing my situation and the conflict to him and we resolved it and we grew out of it.

So I’m looking at all this in conflict, I am experiencing growth in life. And it’s been an amazing thing.  So I say don’t avoid conflict with your brother. It may just be the very sandbox, the safe zone that the Lord may be developing in your life to work out some past things and some past wounds and some past hurts. And He wants it for growth and He wants to bring someone into it with you, so that you can live it through and mature and grow and develop into the man that you are supposed to be. So I love y’all, I appreciate you, thank you for listening and I will be back in touch real soon.

Conflict in Brotherhood – Episode #850 – DivineDesigned.Life

I used to think conflict in brotherhood was something to be avoided but now I see it as a safe sandbox that God uses to help us deal with past wounds and internal conflict.