In a recent post, I described how I came to the conclusion that I needed to create a summary of what I knew in helping to diffuse conflict in a format that was memorable. So, I created the acronym of P.R.O.B.L.E.M.O. to help convey what I could to others who need to know how to work through conflict.
In that post, I indicated that P.R.O.B.L.E.M.O. stands for:
B – Be humble and wise.
L – Listen carefully.
E – Exalt in the image of God.
M – Move towards a resolution.
O – Oneness and eternity.
What about the “O” in P.R.O.B.L.E.M.O.? We started off with prayer, asking for God’s help, wisdom, and understanding of our own sin and role in the conflict. We can seek to refill our cups with the living water that only comes from the Lord. We realize we are broken, constantly needing to be filled with the Spirit of God in order to love others well. But even when these truths are freshly on our minds, we can get worked up by someone’s sin/offenses, and so as we let prayer become a regular habit in conflict, and we allow our cups to be filled by Christ, we must do our best to try to overlook small offenses.
Over looking an offense is a natural part of Scripture’s teaching (Proverbs 19:11; 1 Peter 4:8). And as we recognize our own sin, our own faults and failures, and then the Lord’s mercy and grace towards that open rebellion, we find it easier and easier to forgive other’s sins against us (Ephesians 4:32). Overlooking an offense does not mean that we do not recognize it as sin or a wrong-doing. It doesn’t even mean we refuse to say something about it (though generally this is a good practice if we are seeking to overlook a sin). But it is a refusal to create conflict over that specific sin.
In the heat of a moment, it’s difficult to allow prayer to give us wisdom and convict us of sin. When we’re in the middle of conflict, we may have a hard time allowing our cups to be filled by the Lord. Our pride and anger get in the way. It can be hard to remember that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance and we get bent out of shape over things that have no eternal significance (Romans 2:4). So, we must also practice overlooking small offenses.
This does not mean that we overlook every offense, as this would be just as unloving as seeking to correct every sin. Correction, discipline, and spurring on growth are means of grace as well. So, we have to determine what offenses are worth overlooking and which ones aren’t. What is a “small” offense? I propose that it can be evaluated through the following questions:
- Does the offense/sin dishonor Christ’s image in a significant way for someone else (will it impact someone’s ability to rightfully worship Christ as Lord and Savior)?
- Does the offense/sin represent a larger misunderstanding of God’s character, nature, or Scripture that might be a problem in other contexts for anyone (including the one who committed the offense)?
- Does the offense/sin cause disunity within the body of Christ or inflict severe physical, spiritual, or emotional trauma to someone else?
To be honest, it is likely that most arguments would end at this stage if in good faith, we applied these questions to the issues we end up in conflict with others about. We have to examine conflicts that we have in the context of the eternal, in light of Christ’s character, and in a desire to serve the other person more than serve our own desires. This is a hard thing to do. And to be honest, it is possible to pick any of these questions and make a case for the smallest offenses actually being big offenses.
If I leave a pair of socks on the bedroom floor repeatedly throughout 18 years of marriage, my wife could call me out for not loving her well by expecting her to clean up my messes (thankfully, that’s not been an issue in our marriage as she is full of patience and grace). She might make the case that me leaving socks on the bedroom floor is an expectation that I be served rather than helping her and is a serious flaw in my understanding of how I am to model Jesus to those around me. Or she might just claim it causes her severe emotional trauma. When in fact, it is just a result of being tired at night when I finally get to bed and an understanding that it is a task that can wait until the following day.
This is why it is important to extend the benefit of the doubt to the other person. We don’t always know a person’s motivation or intent (they may not know what their own motivation or intent is) and so we must assume the best of the other person lest we begin to justify our own sinful behavior of refusing to overlook offenses that truly deserve to be overlooked.
Action:
Take the last three things you were in a conflict about and apply the above three questions to that conflict with a commitment to extending the benefit of the doubt to the individual you had the conflict with. Was the conflict over something that would dishonor Christ’s image in a significant way for someone else? Was it over something that would reflect a larger misunderstanding of God’s character, nature, or Scripture that might cause a greater problem for anyone at a later date/time? Or was it over something that would cause disunity within the body of Christ or inflict severe physical, spiritual, or emotional trauma to someone else? Then ask the question, was it necessary for that conflict to happen? Was there anything that you could have stopped from doing to create conflict if it wasn’t something worth fighting over? This will help you to start thinking about problems from an eternal perspective.