Learning relational skills
- From: "Jacob" <jninan@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 01:50:07 GMT
There are many things that come up in personal
relationships that can cause a lot of distress and
sometimes long lasting breaks. People tend to either
withdraw and distance themselves from the strife, or take
it up on a confrontational basis. Neither approach works.
We can look at an example in the life of David where it
was a case of passive inaction.
One of David's sons, Amnon, raped his step sister Tamar.
David heard about it, fumed about it, but did nothing.
Tamar's brother Absalom kept quiet for two years and then
killed Amnon. Absalom then ran away from David. For three
years David did not do anything about it. The story
developed further, till one day Absalom rebelled against
David and declared himself king (2Sa.13-15).
There are many issues in this story, but what I want to
look at is only about how many things could have been
avoided if Absalom and David had taken steps to resolve
the issues rather than allow them to fester, deepen and
get more complicated.
There will be conflicts. They won't go away if we ignore
them or pretend they are not there. Neither can we imagine
that if we wait long enough they will resolve themselves.
Time is a great healer, but only when a healing process
has been started and not when destructive forces are at
work.
Some of us are temperamentally inclined to avoid
conflicts. We may think we are peace-loving people. But
the fact of the matter may be that we don't know how to
handle conflicts. Even if we have tried to put out the
fire in the past and our attempts have only resulted in
bigger eruptions, all it shows is that we need to learn
how to handle such situations.
On the other hand, some of us are inclined to fight it
out, no matter if the other party responds favourably or
not. We think we don't want to stand any nonsense and we
are prepared to go to any length to set things right. But
the fact may be that we imagine that we are right and the
others wrong, which is hardly the case most of the time!
We don't know how to handle things in a humble and an
understanding way.
So what is needed? 1. Seeking God for wisdom and grace. 2.
A strong desire to resolve the issue. 3. Willingness to
listen to the other side. 4. Patience to listen without
interrupting. 5. Inner acknowledgment that we could be
wrong. 6. Humility to ask and receive forgiveness. 7.
Determination to try and discuss things without getting
upset, blaming each other and calling names. 8. If
possible, set up ground rules with the other party for
holding discussions.
Of course, when we try this, we may fail. But we can learn
to do things better each time.
.
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