When I was a child, one of my favorite go-to toys on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon was toy soldiers. I had a vast collection of small plastic army men that I could array all over the kitchen floor of my home or parade through the dining room, much to the chagrin of my poor mother. The armies I had acquired over the years ranged from simple green army men to Civil War soldiers of blue and grey. I even had a “Rough Riders” set that included Teddy Roosevelt and numerous charging infantry of the Spanish-American War.

At my Grandad’s house, he had a box of Alamo figures, complete with a vast army of Mexican soldiers parading towards the humble Texas defenders. I would spend HOURS on the floor of my home or my grandparents’ engrossed in linoleum combat across wide swaths of American history. Gettysburg would be fought in the dining room, the Alamo played out in Grandad’s sunroom, Teddy Roosevelt charged repeatedly through the kitchen, and vast invasions of green army men would take over the living room on various afternoons.

The one glaring historical inaccuracy of my plastic recreations was that at the end of the day, the soldiers would be collected and simply returned to the box, bucket, or whatever Tupperware container my mom had provided. The rooms would be cleared, the armies contained, and I would simply move on to the next game.

But real conflicts are not so simple…

The New Testament is filled to the brim with calls towards conflict resolution. Paul writes in his letter to Ephesians, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Jesus himself states in the Gospel of Matthew, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” Why such a large emphasis on resolving conflict within your life or with those you are bonded with by God?

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” just another phrase of resolution from our Savior, Jesus. Christ knew firsthand what imbittered conflict and unresolved anger would lead to in the end. Truthfully, the anger that the religious and political authorities had towards Jesus began with a small ember and then burst into a murderous inferno. Christ wants the church to be insulated or at least equipped to handle such issues before they become a warring faction and ingrained within the very walls of the church.

The commonality with an approach to conflict is to do so with love for God, respect for the other, a steadfast reliance on scripture, and a true desire for peace. If you go to the scriptures and it equips you (along with the Holy Spirit) to confront someone you are in conflict with, then you are already standing on firm ground. However, if you first do not allow God to convict you in your approach, or you do not look on towards the other person in this conflict with respect and love, you still may founder. By placing God at the forefront of the conflict and allowing him to guide and convict you as well, your approach will be on solid ground. Finally, if your one true desire in engaging in such arguments is true peace, then it is honoring unto God and will be honored in return. Such an approach is void of selfishness and self-righteousness.

This is not a guarantee of universal conflict resolution. It might not even change the outcome all that much. Instead, it will change you! It will make YOU a more thoughtful and introspective person when it comes to engaging others in correction or argument. It will also give you the strength to stand up and engage those with whom you are quarreling. Your arguments will no longer become just simple toy soldier battles in which nothing is gained, and they are simply put away to be drawn out another day. Instead, you will be a peacemaker in the trust sense!

Engaging with others with a desire for true peace in the end!

And blessed are the peacemakers!

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Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First United Methodist Church, Fairfield TX
ACS Chaplain – United States Coast Guard, Station Galveston TX