As a father of six, I often feel like I’m constantly involved in conflict resolution – though not as much so as my wife, since she’s full-time with the kids whereas I have a “day job”. I suppose some of this conflict is almost inevitable – with eight people in the household, that means there are 28 different pairs of people who could have a conflict at any given time. But I digress. All this conflict keeps bringing me back to Matthew 7:3-5 (LSB):

“And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

This text is so simple, yet so deep and profound. Here, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses our natural propensity to judge others, and to judge them unfairly. When it comes to others, we’re ready to make a huge issue out of even something very small, which he describes here as a speck in their eye. But when it comes to ourselves, we’re ready to overlook even huge glaring issues, so much so that he takes it almost to a comical level and pictures us being willing even to overlook having a log in our eye. Imagine someone with a whole log in their eye, trying to help someone else remove a tiny speck! Clearly that would be impossible; if I have a log in my eye, there’s no way I’m going to be able to closely inspect someone else’s eye to help them get a speck out of it. It’s obvious – yet how much do we fail to do what this says?!?

So often, when there’s a conflict, our first response is to think of all the things the other person did wrong. This is how my kids often communicate to me about their problems – they bring a list of the ways they were wronged, and of course they must be an innocent victim. But it takes me back to my first year or so of marriage, when Maura and I fought so much – and I remember having all the same thoughts myself. If there was conflict, I could clearly see all the ways she had been wrong, but of course I was innocent, or at least I had good excuses for how I had acted. But I kept coming back to this passage, and to Ephesians 5:25-27:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

Here, husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church, wanting what’s truly best for them. This call to love isn’t limited to marriage, though – it extends to siblings and beyond. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said (Matthew 5:44, LSB):

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…

We’re called to love even our enemies sacrificially, praying even for those who are deliberately trying to hurt us. This leaves us with no excuse not to love – it left me with no excuse not to love my wife, and it leaves my children with no excuse not to love their siblings. Even if their siblings are enemies, they are commanded to love their siblings.

What, then, of conflict? We have to come back to this principle of first taking the log out of our own eye. For most of us, other people’s sins seem worse than our own, almost inevitably so. We know all our own excuses, all the extenuating circumstances, and are ready to make allowances for them. But, we’re perhaps not ready to make those same allowances for others.

The New Testament many times summarizes the latter portion of the 10 commandments as “love your neighbor as yourself” (e.g. Matthew 19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9 etc.). In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis notes about this:

Well, how exactly do I love myself? Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently ‘love your neighbor’ does not mean ‘feel fond of him’… So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either… In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing.

Lewis goes on to explain that he had heard it said that he should hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the man, which he thought was rather a silly distinction. However, he eventually realized:

…however much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

So, he goes on to argue that Christianity should not reduce the hatred we feel for wrong in the last bit – but rather it should make us hate the wrongdoing of others in the same way we hate bad things in ourselves: “being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow… he can be cured”.

So, there it is – what is my attitude when I feel wronged? First and foremost, our text tells us that I ought to look at myself. How have I contributed to the problem? What could I have done differently? I’m commanded to first take the log out of my own eye. I’m told that it’s there, and that I’d better deal with it first. So, I must get on my knees before God, metaphorically or literally or both, and ask God to help me see the log in my own eye and get it out.

Then, second, and only after dealing with the log in my own eye, I ought to love this fellow human being and seek to bring good to them, even through this conflict, in the same way Lewis is recommending. I need to extend to them the same benefit of the doubt I give myself, make allowances for extenuating circumstances, and really desire the best for them – being sorry that they have done such things and desiring that they be cured and restored. Then, and with that attitude, I can come to them and try to help them remove the speck from their own eye.

In John 15:12, Jesus told his disciples (LSB):

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

When we are in conflict with someone, then, let’s ask ourselves – am I loving this person with the same love that Jesus has for me, even in this situation? Even in the midst of this conflict? If not, I need to repent.

So, my prayer for myself, for you, and for my children, is that, when we face conflict, we:

  • Know how much Jesus has loved us and what he’s done for us
  • Begin by dealing with our own sin, truly repenting of it before God and turning from it – though our greatest desire may be to begin by confronting the other person for their sin
  • Continue by praying for the person who has wronged us, until we get our heart into the right place and are able to come to them in love seeking their good rather than out of anger, vengeance or malice
  • Finally, coming to the person who has wronged us and seeking repentance, reconciliation and restoration – out of love