Office Hours #5: How to have hard conversations (part 1)

One of my dear friends and I had the chance to teach a breakout session at a women's conference in April so I thought I would share a bit about it here since it is a common counseling office topic: how to have hard conversations.

I was surprised that anyone willingly chose this breakout session ;). But they sure showed up and

they didn't just show up-- it was evident that this is something we all want and need to talk about.

Eventually you have lived long enough to realize that life can’t be lived, or at least lived well, without hard conversations. Because behind every hard conversation is a relationship- and often a relationship or a person at stake.

We set out to convince our listeners that hard convos are worth it AND that growing in ability to engage these conversation WELL are not only valuable but Biblical.

Where do we see this in Scripture?

From the beginning of Genesis we see God as a communicator– THE WORD, brought forth the earth through His words. And He communicated from day one with the people He chose to create.

We see throughout the wisdom literature of Scripture that communicating with truth is a way of trusting in the God who created communication and living life the way it was intended.

Just a couple of examples:

Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of mankind is a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected.”

Proverbs 28:23 spells out that “one who rebukes a person will later find more favor than one who flatters with his tongue.”

Beyond the Old Testament, Jesus, Himself, spoke to the importance of communication in conflict.

"If someone sins against you, go to them alone." (Matthew 18:15)

And even in the establishment of the early church, we see in the writings of Paul that conflictual communication will need to happen inevitably.

Philippians 2:3-4 tells us to love others more than ourselves--which of course requires speaking TRUTH even when it wounds and makes us uncomfortable.

There are many examples of church conflicts/disagreement that are mentioned along with the admonishment to live a life worthy the gospel--which is the ultimate reconciliation and makes all reconciliation possible. (Eph. 4:1-3)

Ok, so we've established that there is Biblical basis to address conflict (there are so many other examples) but let's zoom out a bit.

Why does conflict exist?

Where does this even come from? Why do we have conflict? I love how Ken Sande breaks down some of these reasons in his book Peacemakers...

One reason is poor communication -- we simply don't communicate what we mean or it ends up lost in translation.

A second reason is the competition that exists over limited resources (this could be time or money). There's a lot of talk these days about a "scarcity mindset". We can see that reality as early as the first few chapters of Genesis as soon as humans begin to compete with one another.

Third, we often have differences in values, goals, gifts, calling, priorities, expectations, interests or opinions with other people. We assume that people think the way we think but we are all motivated by different things so we don't always understand where another person is coming from.

Finally, we have sinful hearts and desires that turn into destructive actions and words. Scripture tells us that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. This often leads us to find ourselves in conflict because what is inside of us begins to spill out to those around us.

At some point you will have conflict with others whether it is caused by you or someone else. And you get the choice to respond to it.

Unfortunately we often go wrong in our response.

This can look like:

Talking to the wrong people: If someone sins against you, we are to go to them alone (Matthew 18:15) but often it feels easier to talk to someone else. This is called gossip or slander.

Slander is making false statements about someone that either intentionally or unintentionally damages their reputation; leaving out favorable info. Gossip is casual/idle talk that is done by sharing negative information about another person and finding joy in that; it may not always be false information.

Being careless with our words: We are quick to anger and quick to speak (James 1:19-21) or we might prefer a passive aggressive approach where we punish with our withholding of words.

Avoid hard conversations: People-pleasing keep us from obeying God (Galatians 1:10) or we want to protect ourselves at all costs.

Operate out of assumptions: Sometimes we let narratives form that we listen to and begin to be the lens we see the person and situation. We may have the thought that "they will never want to hear what I have to say.” To counteract this, we might want to ask the question: "If I believed the best about this person what would I believe?"

Stay tuned for the next post on where we go from here...