Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the last installment in our Maze of Marriage series. In this series, we’ve been talking about four areas where a lot of couples make some wrong turns in this maze that we call marriage.

We started out talking about sex. It’s really interesting that the sex message from this series has been up only been up on our website for three weeks and it is already one of the most frequently viewed sermons on our site. I’m not sure what that means. One of the things it probably means is that there’s a lot of confusion, misinformation, and out-and-out wrong ideas about sex. So in this first message we explored the joy and fulfillment that comes from sex as God intended it to be.

Then in the next message we talked about money. Money tension is cited as the number one reason for divorce in our country today. So we chased after a godly perspective on our money and our stuff that will help us in our marriages.

Then last week we talked about kids. A lot of couples pour everything into their kids, leaving nothing for their spouse. So then it comes as no surprise when the marriage has dwindled into nothingness. We talked about some key ideas to keep our marriages thriving and growing after we have kids.

Today we’re going to wrap up this series by talking about conflict.

This week I ran across one of the most depressing statistics that I’ve read in a long time. The current divorce rate among non-Christian couples is between 50-51%. The divorce rate among Christian couples now stands at 52%. This is not a contest that we should be winning, and yet statistically we are.

There is no shortage of reasons why these statistics read as they do. We don’t have time to explore them all. I’m sure we don’t even realize all the reasons that exist. But this morning I want to suggest that one reason for this statistic is that, by and large, Christian couples don’t know how to handle conflict any better than non-Christian couples.

This isn’t just played out in divorce statistics. It’s played out in the number of Christian marriages that I see that are a far cry from happy, fulfilling relationships. There really is trouble in paradise. And much of that trouble stems from unresolved, unhealthy, un-dealt with conflict. In this issue lies the granddaddy of all wrong turns in the marriage maze.

As we start exploring this today, we have to start with this basic tenet of marriage:

Conflict is inevitable. It sounds remarkably unspiritual to say that, doesn’t it? It also sounds like an admission of failure. That somehow, if there is conflict in our marriage, then we’re falling short of the mark. We’ve failed somewhere along the way.

In the last several weeks, we’ve been talking about our roles as men and women. Our current maze of marriage series, along with our Mirrors series that we started on Mother’s Day and we’ll conclude next week on Father’s Day, all of these messages have this basic underlying tenet: men and women are vastly different creatures. It’s far beyond genetic or sexual differences. It’s more than just the X or Y chromosome. There are God-given, God-designed, God-orchestrated differences between men and women. And in marriage, when one man and one woman come together for life, those differences bring conflict. You can deny it and decry it, or you can choose to live in a little place called reality. And in real world marriages, there is conflict.

The goal of a godly marriage is not the absence of conflict. The goal is to handle conflict in a godly way. So today we’re going to chase after some godly principles of dealing with conflict in our marriages. And if you’re dating, maybe thinking about getting engaged, these principles still apply. If you begin putting them in place now, you’ll reap the benefits in your marriage.

Our focus text this morning comes from James 1. Even though the two verses we’re going to explore aren’t exclusively written about marriage, they give us a ton of wisdom and insight about conflict in the marriage relationship.

James 1:19-20. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” (James 1:19-20, NIV)

When a marriage is marred with an unhealthy level of conflict, one thing is certain: somewhere along the way, the couple has abandoned the formula found in these verses. If we would follow this simple God-formula when conflict arises, that 52% divorce rate among believing couples would drop faster than a Reds outfielder can drop a fly ball.

So let’s spend some time unpacking God’s Word in these verses. In these two short verses, there is a straightforward three-prong strategy for dealing with conflict.

Step 1 – Be quick to listen.

A lot of you know that I like to leave the office to study and write my messages. My favorite office away from the office is Starbucks. I was there this week working on this message and there was a guy a few tables down from me who was studying very intently. Looked like he was studying for a final exam of some kind. It was a noisier day than usual at Starbucks. There was a guy on a ladder who was doing some work on the ceiling. Thankfully it didn’t last long, but while he was working it, was pretty difficult to concentrate. But this fellow at the table kept right on reading and studying without missing a beat. I was really beginning to marvel at his ability to tune out the noise and concentrate on his studies. Then, when he got up to use the restroom, he revealed his secret because he took the earplugs out of his ears.

The first step in handling marital conflict God’s way is to remove the earplugs. To be quick to listen. In marriage conflict, your first response should be listening. And you’re thinking, “Well, if we both listen and neither one talks, then there won’t be an argument, will there?” Hmm…Amazing how that happens, isn’t it?

There are a lot of petty disagreements that would never get off the ground if married couples took this first step. Not all conflicts in marriage are small or petty, but the ones that are would never have any legs at all if both partners listened first instead of speaking first.

But we have to understand what listening is. Listening isn’t just hearing. Studies show that the average person forgets 56% of what they hear immediately. They forget 75% of what they hear within a day. Doesn’t bid well for us preachers, does it? We are inundated with so much auditory information everyday that we naturally condition ourselves to hear, but not to listen.

Have you ever met somebody and then immediately forgot their name? You’re standing there, smiling, and you’re thinking, “Now this person just introduced themselves to me! How could I have already forgotten their name?” It’s because you were hearing, but you weren’t listening.

It’s like the people Jesus was talking about in Matthew 13 when he said, “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” (Matthew 13:14b, ESV)

Hearing and listening, hearing and understanding are not the same things. Hearing is passive. You hear stuff all the time. You hear so much that you subconsciously tune most of it out. Right now, some of you are not listening to me. You’re simply hearing me because I’m making noise. Listening requires more.

Hearing is passive. Listening is active. Listening is something that you have to intentionally do. Unlike hearing, when it comes to listening you can’t mentally check out. You’ve got to keep your mind engaged while you listen.

And here is the problem in a lot of marriages. There’s a lot of hearing going on, but not a lot of listening. This happened to me just this week.

Nicki and I were in our living room talking. The Reds game was on TV, but I hadn’t really been watching it very intently. Can you blame me? You can only watch a train wreck so many times. But anyway, Nicki and I were talking while the game was on. And then, all of a sudden, the Reds turned one of the best double plays I’ve seen in a long time. And my eyes, my mind, and my ears were instantly glued to the TV as they showed the replay over and over again. It was an amazing play! And then, I slowly realized that my wife had just asked me a question…I knew this because she wasn’t talking. Instead, she was looking at me, waiting on me to answer her. Problem was, I had no idea what she had just said. I heard the question, but I didn’t listen to the question, therefore I didn’t remember what the question was. My mind quickly shuffled through several escape options for this awkward situation, but I realized that she had me dead to rights. I simply looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, honey. I wasn’t listening. But did you see that double play?” Thankfully I have a very patient and understanding wife. That’s pretty much a requirement to be married to me.

There’s a big difference between hearing and listening. And the first step in godly conflict management is not hearing. It is listening.

Listening means that you’re not simply biding your time. You’re not just waiting for your chance to respond. You’re not formulating your rebuttal in your mind while your spouse is talking. That’s what politicians do in a debate. They’re always trying to stay ahead of their opponent with some witty comeback or some snappy retort. Can you see the problem with this in a marriage context? The other person isn’t your opponent. He’s your husband! She’s your wife!

Listening takes you out of an adversarial position and puts you in a more understanding position. When you listen to your spouse, it means that you’re concerned about their concerns. You’re not concerned about winning an argument or coming out on top. You’re concerned with listening to your spouse’s concerns and then working through them.

But eventually you’ve got to talk, right? That’s step number two. Be slow to speak.

Notice it doesn’t say that you can’t speak up when there is conflict in your marriage. The goal of James when he wrote these verses wasn’t to completely silence us. His goal was to just slow us down when it comes to our words.

Think about a time when you said something that you really regretted. We’ve all done it. And almost without exception, didn’t that happen because you spoke too quickly? You spoke first and thought later.

In our verses from James, God is reminding us that our words carry great weight and power, especially when we’re in the midst of conflict. What you say, your tone of voice, the volume of your voice all can either escalate or diffuse conflict.

This is why God tells us to be slow to speak. Because when we slow down, we’ve got time to process our words. We’ve got time to think about what we’re going to say and how we’re going to say it.

The Bible says in the book of Proverbs, “He who restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.” (Proverbs 17:27, NASB)

Look at some of the key words in that verse. A godly person restrains their words. In other words, they pull back on the reigns. They slow down their tongue to make sure that their mind is a step ahead of their mouth.

This person has a cool spirit. When tempers are flaring up in marital conflict, the best thing you can do may be to walk away for a little while. I’m not suggesting that you storm out of the room, but a few minutes of separation may help you regain the cool spirit of understanding that this verse in Proverbs talks about. But to do that, you’ve got to be willing to be slow to speak. You’ve got to push the pause button on your mouth, go cool off for a few minutes, and then come back and talk through it with a cool spirit. The Roman statesman Seneca said, “A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.” The ability to slow down your tongue, take five, and then come back with a cooler head is a great way to head off damaging conflict.

Let’s look at another verse from Proverbs 17. “The start of a quarrel is like a leak in a dam, so stop it before it bursts.” (Proverbs 17:14, The Message)

In every conflict, you have a choice. You can choose to make the hole in the dam bigger, starting a deluge, or you can choose to plug the hole, stopping the flood. The choice is made in your mind, but it is carried out through your mouth. Your words will determine whether the dam breaks or the leak is sealed.

Godly conflict resolution in your marriage means that you have to be slow to speak. Do you always have to have the last word? Is it more important to win the argument or to mutually resolve the conflict?

For some of us, this is really going to require a paradigm shift in our marriages. If your goal in marital conflict is winning an argument, then, honestly, you’re doomed before you start. You might win your fair share of arguments, but you’re going to lose something infinitely greater. You’re going to lose your relationship in your conquest to always be right.

In our first message in this series, we talked about how sex by God’s design unites husband and wife as one flesh for life. But this one flesh principle is not just something that happens in bed. The oneness that occurs in marriage is a total self-abandonment. In the godly marriage, you abandon your needs and desires in favor of your spouse’s needs and desires.

Now, apply this selflessness, this “one fleshness,” to marital conflict. If you are truly one flesh, if you are honestly putting your spouse’s needs above your own, then it just isn’t possible to justify an attempt to simply beat them in an argument. Your goal will be to resolve the conflict, not win the debate. If you want to debate, then run for office. If you want a godly marriage, then be slow to speak.

Which leads us to the third key step in managing marital conflict. Be slow to become angry.

These three steps are a continuum. They each build on one another. The first step is listening. To listen, you’ve got to be slow to speak. And when you do speak, it’s got to come from a cool spirit, not a hot head.

Laurence J. Peter said, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

So how do we do this? Because we all get angry. It’s a natural human emotion. And anger, in and of itself, is not right or wrong. Jesus himself became angry, so anger itself cannot be sinful. The danger is not our anger, but what we do with our anger.

H. Norman Wright outlined four different responses we can have regarding anger. We can suppress it, express it, repress it, or confess it.

The person who suppresses anger is the person who knows that they’re angry. They just don’t know what to do about that. So they hide the fact that they’re angry. Paint the smile on. Act like everything’s hunky dory. But eventually anger has to spill out, and it will usually happen through uncontrolled words or actions.

The person who expresses anger is the one who puts their temper on display for all to see. It takes very little to set them off. Everyone walks on eggshells around this person because they’re a loose cannon with a short fuse.

The person with repressed anger is the one who just bottles it up. It’s different from anger suppression because the motive is different. A person suppresses anger because they don’t know what to do with it. A person represses anger because they think that anger is not a legitimate emotion. In other words, they believe that they’re not actually allowed to be angry. A lot of Christians fall into this category because they think that, because they are a Christ-follower, they’re not allowed to be angry. This anger repression is usually learned in childhood, and as it continues through life, it just builds and builds. And it will often lead to depression. There’s nowhere for your anger to go, so it morphs into depression.

And then the final way to handle anger, the godly way to handle anger, is to confess it. In a godly marriage, you need to confess your anger before it gets out of control or before it gets tucked away down deep inside you. But this presents us with a tricky turn in the marriage maze. We’ve got to be careful how we confess our anger.

First of all, we’ve got to pinpoint exactly why we’re angry. Are you really angry with your spouse? With your kids? Or are you truly angry about something that happened at work? Maybe your boss really ticked you off. Or maybe someone cut you off in traffic. The line at the grocery store was too long. You need to pinpoint exactly what has happened to get your anger pumping. Bringing anger home and taking it out on your spouse or your kids is easy to do, and it is incredibly destructive. The people you love the most, your spouse and your children, cannot be a dumping ground for your misplaced anger.

Once you’ve pinpointed why you’re angry, then you’ve got to direct your anger. Maybe the issue really is with your spouse. You’re angry because of something your husband or wife said or did. When you confess your anger, you’ve got to make sure that your anger is directed at what your spouse did or said, not at your spouse as an individual. There’s a big difference between, “You make me so mad!” and “What you said really angered me.” The focus is on the words, not on the person. That differentiation may seem inconsequential, but it really does matter. It matters because it will change your tone. There’s not as much passion connected to your anger if it’s directed at a word or an action instead of a person.

And then it comes time to finally confess your anger. It makes sense why James tells us to be slow to speak. Because we’re just now getting to the point of saying something. All of this stuff has to be explored and measured before you say a word!

But eventually in a healthy, godly marriage, you’ve got to confess your anger. If you’ve gone through the previous steps in your mind and your heart, then you’ll finally be ready to bring your mouth into the equation by verbalizing your anger. But how you do it will make all the difference.

Your confession of anger cannot be carried our through manipulation or domination.

Ladies, some of you use your moodiness to get your way and manipulate your husband. You have learned that you can use different emotional strategies to try to get your way or to win an argument.

The Bible says in Proverbs 21, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.” (Proverbs 21:19, NIV) That’s a powerful statement, isn’t it? I think of that message from Jim Willison that we played earlier. He’s in the deserts of Iraq, one of the most barren wastelands on our planet. Better to live there than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

I have seen women that will start by yelling, which doesn’t work. Then they turn to pouting, which doesn’t work. Then they turn to crying, ah…that works. What is she doing? She’s being moody. She’s jumping from mood to mood to mood until she finds one that works.

Or maybe she uses sex as leverage. She’ll withhold sex to win an argument. Sex is not a bargaining chip. There is no biblical basis for using sex to manipulate your husband into giving in. Confessing your anger cannot be through manipulation.

Guys, confessing your anger cannot come through domination. A lot of guys have figured out that they way to get what they want is to act like an ogre. After all, the Bible tells wives to live submissively with their husbands, so we just use that to beat them over the head. Guys, a submissive wife is not an excuse for you to act like Shrek. It’s not a license to be an ogre or a bully.

The Bibles says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life…” (1 Peter 3:7, NIV)

Fellas, you may be able to bully your wife and get your way. Losing your temper may win the argument, but it’s only because you’re destroying your wife. She’s wilting like a flower. Her spirit is being crushed by every harsh word you speak. Is it worth that to win the argument?

Confession of anger is critical to a healthy, godly marriage, but it’s got to be something we do with great care. It can’t be manipulative. It can’t be domineering.

Dr. Kevin Leman wrote, “If we can get to the point where we begin to share anger and frustration with each other in a positive way, then we are beginning to put together a marriage.”

In his book Sex Begins in the Kitchen, Dr. Leman suggests, “Whenever you feel that there are some angry thoughts to be shared, why don’t you and your mate take a bath together? I know that sounds absolutely crazy. Plunge in! Sit facing each other in the bathtub. This is probably the best environment within a home to fight. This setting removes all barriers from you. But be sure to keep the rules in mind: 1. you have a right to be angry. 2. you express your anger at the act, not the person. 3. verbalize your anger. 4. listen to the other person, without thinking what you are going to say in defense. 5. be sure to be specific. 6. ask your mate how he or she would like you to be different, or how you can change your behavior. 7. be sure to find a satisfactory solution to the anger.”

Let’s go back and read our focus text one more time. James writes, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” (James 1:19-20, NIV)

You won’t have a conflict-free marriage. It just isn’t going to happen. Conflict isn’t the wrong turn in the marriage maze. The wrong turn is often how we choose to deal with that conflict. But if we follow God’s formula in these verses, we’ll be able to navigate one of the most confusing difficult turns in the maze of marriage.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: anger, conflict, listening, marriage