Love And War

Why are relationships so hard? Why do we fight and hurt each other? Could there be something that is pitting us against each other and making it much, much harder for us?

I listened to a sermon this week by Mike Erre, former pastor of Rock Harbor church. In the sermon he was talking about the fact that we as a culture do not have a healthy respect for Satan and what he is capable of. He, or his demons, are all around us, whether we want to admit they are there or not.

They try to get inside our minds, our dreams, and our emotions. They try to pit us against each other all the time. But what does Scripture say, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

One of the biggest tricks Satan uses, Mike said, is to get us to fight against flesh and blood. But what does Paul say? "Our battle is not against flesh and blood." I have heard this verse a million times but never saw it in this context or seen it so clearly. May God give us eyes to see this truth more and more.

We are not to fight against each other. That is the farthest thing from God's will for us possible.

Eph. 4 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice." What grieves the Holy Spirit? Fighting, anger, rage, brawling....because what is the greatest commandment? Love God and love others as we love ourselves right?

I have not done this perfectly by any means, but none of us can since we are all fallen human beings.

Mike also said, "All hatred we feel only fuels the fires of hell; it only feeds the powers." That includes any criticism Christians may have of the homosexual community, alcoholics, people who have abortions or any other taboo issues. Love the sinner, hate the sin right? So why do so many Christian hate other people because of their sin?

What was Jesus' reaction to "sinners?" He had COMPASSION on them. Twelve times in the gospel of Mark it states that Jesus had compassion on the people. How often do we look at others with compassion. When we see a single mom struggling with her many kids how quick are we to judge her? What if she is a single mom because her husband died? We never know the full situation.

Even for people that get caught up in drinking or drugs, there is a reason. Usually it is to cover up immense pain that they have from their past or child hood. Do we ever consider this when looking at other people?

I have worked with people for the last 14 years in retail, restaurant work, child care, call centers...lots of work with people, and the main thing I have learned about people is there is ALWAYS a reason for what they do. I have had many rude customers over the last 14 years, but what I always want to ask them is, "How is your home life?" Seriously. Because if their home life is horrible it can easily make the rest of their lives horrible.

How many marriages are on the verge of failing? How many people are incredibly stressed right now with our current economic recession? But instead of having compassion on each other because we are all in the same boat we pick fights with each other. We judge; we point the finger.

We should really be pointing the finger at ourselves and ask, "Why am I acting, thinking, behaving this way? What is going on inside of me?" I know whenever I am hungry or tired my attitude can quickly go south.

Many of us are not taking care of ourselves so we are grumpy and take it out on everyone else around us. When really, all we probably need is a good nap or a good meal.

Other people are not responsible for our happiness. We are.

That is a concept that some people never grasp in their entire lifetimes! They keep wanting to make someone else responsible for everything that goes wrong in their lives.

A good book on this topic is "Boundaries." In that Cloud and Townsend say, "We are responsible TO others but not FOR them."

Many people we meet want to make us responsible FOR them.

But we are only responsible for ourselves and TO others. This means we have an obligation to treat others with courtesy and respect. It does not mean we let them walk all over us. It does not mean if there is an issue that needs to be brought up we say nothing, because that is actually hurting them. If we allow a friend or spouse to remain in their sin we do not actually love them. As a parents who loves his or her child corrects them, so we should correct those closest to us for their own benefit and ours, but in love.

"Speak the truth in love."

We need to speak the truth, because "the truth shall set you free." But we need to say the truth in love to the people we care about. If we pose it as, "this is really is to your benefit" then that is good. If we pose it as a way to control another person, that is never good.

Love and control are opposing forces. We cannot love someone and try to control them at the same time. Either we want to love them or control them.

In regards to disagreements in relationships, they are absolutely inevitable. If any couple says they never fight, one or both of them is not being truly honest with themselves or is letting the other walk all over them. Two healthy, stable people who know what they want out of life will have disagreements. John Townsend says, "Hurt is a sign you're really getting to know each other."

If you did not care about the other person or what they thought of you, they would not be able to hurt you. "People do not have power over us unless we let them." Remember that.

Joyce Meyer said once that when she was praying to God about her husband Dave hurting her God said to her, "He WILL hurt but I can HEAL you!" God also gives us the amazing gift of forgiveness. I saw a quote once that said, "The best marriage is made of two very good forgivers." Amen! Are you a good forgiver?

Scripture says, "To overlook an offense is a glory."

There are many marriage, all over this country, that are currently in a type of cold war. One offended the other and that one cannot forgive the other. So they don't talk for long periods of time, sometimes for weeks. Holding a grudge is not healthy for anyone involved. It is usually the woman that does this. For whatever reason she thinks that she is punishing the man by doing this, but in reality she is only punishing herself for her own inability to forgive.

Think of it logically women. The man you are holding a grudge against is probably out with his friends playing golf and not having a second thought about you or the fight you had while you stew over the resentment in your mind, taking Satan's bait. Listen to what you are thinking about. Who's voice are you listening to? Is it God's, Satan's, or your own?

God help us women in this! lol Because Satan continues to deceive women everyday like he did with Eve in the garden. And we fall for his bait so many times! :(

May God give us eyes to see and ears to hear this truth.

The trick in marriage is to believe essentially that the person you are with has a good heart and they have good intentions. That is all that matters. No matter what they do, you cannot, in your mind or heart, start to think that they are evil or not good at all. Don't let yourself go there. If you do the day is doomed, the weekend, the month.

Everyone is made of a mixture of good and bad. Maturity comes when we can see both at the same time. No one is all good or all bad. Only Satan is all bad and God is all good. However, human beings are all a mixture of both.

You yourself are not all good or all bad, and the person you are with is also not all good or all bad. If you were all good you would not need a savior. You or them are not all bad because we are all made in the image of God. We were made with a shadow of God's intellect and emotions. That is what it means to be made in his image. God has emotions like we do. He has wisdom like we do. These aspects of Him are far superior to us in every way, but we reflect his nature.

A good thing to think of is what "triggers" make you switch in your mind to thinking the person you are with is good to being all bad. Once you have identified these share them with the person you are with. These are like mines that if they step on, all hell can break loose. They are sensitive areas for us due to our past or our own insecurities.

We all have these soft spots. Spots where we have been cut before so to speak, or bruises that we have in our hearts. They are not bad necessarily because we ALL have them. But you need to communicate what they are to the other person. Guys DO NOT read minds. They usually have no idea what you are thinking women! No idea. So you have to communicate this openly to them, and they DO want to know. If it can prevent a war in your household, they want to know. lol

But we all in general need to take responsibility for our own feelings. I learned a lot about this with my late husband. No one else can "make" us mad. We make ourselves mad because of the expectations we have. If the other person never knows your expectations, how can they responsible for your getting mad when those un-spoken of expectations do not get met? You have to communicate what you want and what you will and will not put up with. If you do not, anger and hurt feelings can easily result.

And may God move the heart of the person you are with to respond in a kind way. But it goes both ways. If you do not acknowledge what his or her expectations are and try to fulfill them, they may not with yours. It is a give and take. Love is always give and take. You are a team. If one is happy, both should be happy. If one is sad, both should be sad.

Another reason conflict may arise more then one might expect in a relationship is because one person has created a safe environment for the other one who is hurting to express their pain. A lot of times in love all the feeling and emotions people have stuffed inside their whole lives or hid behind a mask start to come out. The more healthy person then begins to think it is their fault. It is not. It may very well be that past hurts are just coming up. Again, look on others with compassion. Ask, "Why might this person be acting or feeling this way? What could be at the root of it? Do you know their full story?"

Many times it is the woman who has a lot of pent up anger at men for very legitimate reasons, and the guy she is now with sadly gets a lot of anger directed at him. Four of the women closest to me have been raped by a guy. How would that affect their future relationships do you think? Tremendously. Sadly the nice guys often times are stuck cleaning up the mess that the bad guy left.

But this happens to women to. There are many crazy women out there, so the nice girls also have to clean up the "mess," or damage to a man's ego, that the previous woman did.

In a movie that I love Kevin Costner says to the woman he is dating, "I will just have to learn to be ok with that. I'll have to be ok with the limp."

We all walk with somewhat of a limp don't we? None of us goes through this life untouched by pain, hurt and rejection.

The fact is more often then not it is the women in our world that suffer the most pain. So for those of you men out there that are good, recognize that it very well might not be you that she is mad at. It is probably the other ten guys that have used her that she is mad at and you just happen to there at the moment for her to be angry with. Many women do not analyze this and have no idea why they are so angry at the man they are very much in love with. They themselves do not understand what they do. Even if you asked them, "Does this have anything to do with what happened to you." They probably would deny it or not have any idea. But most likely, it has everything to do with what happened to them or what they have been through.

"Know thyself," Shakespeare said. Why should we know ourselves? Because we have to live with ourselves for one, lol, and because if you do not understand yourself how can you understand anyone else? If you do not know how to make yourself healthy how can you help anyone else to become healthy?

We are all works in progress. I love the quote, "Be patient with me. God isn't finished with me yet." He will never be finished with any of us our whole lifetimes. We will never "arrive." We will never be whole. In this life, we will always be broken.

The key is to recognize that we ourselves are broken and that the person we are with is broken. Many people start a relationship with rose colored glasses and then when the high wears off, they split up or divorce to find another person to have that high with. But the high ALWAYS wears off. If there is not a friendship to sustain the relationship when the romantic love wears off, you aint got nothing honey. lol. People run from person to person hoping to get it right with the next one. What if you just stick it out with the one you have? What if you just stand firm in the fight and not give up? What if you yourself are the problem and you need to work on yourself, not leave the other person?

The Marines have this concept down very well. My late husband was obsessed with watching videos about the Marine mentality. They never give up on themselves or each other. They are a team. They endure. They press on, no matter how hard things are.

Sometimes another reason for fighting in a relationship is that the other person may be picking a fight with you because they love you, as odd as that sounds. They are picking a "lovers quarrel." Why? Think about it, love is all about intense emotions. It is ideal when they are good intense emotions, but we are fallen and cannot always sustain the good intense emotions with ourselves or with others, so we go for the bad when we cannot have the good. In the fight there is intense negative emotion, which ironically, if you think about it, is still a way of connecting.

Also we would not pick the fight with the other person if we didn't care. The thing couples need to really worry about is when the other or both just stop caring. That is when you know love has died. I once heard, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." So true! Or a quote I recently read, "Be glad when you yell and she yells back at you. If she remains silent, you have already lost her."

Silence is not golden. It is a killer of love.

Overall relationships are very, very hard. But with God's help, we can all become better at them.

May God give us all eyes to see and ears to hear what He wants us to in all this.

Peace be with you! And may God bless you! :)

Resource ideas for this blog.....Mike Erre's sermons at Mariners in Irvine 8/26/12 "Lead us not....deliver us (you can download the Mariners podcast on Itunes and listen to it. I highly recommend it to you!), the book Boundaries by Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend, the video series by Cloud and Townsend "Men and Women: What They Really Want," a sermon by Tony Campolo "Choose Love, Not Power" (Tony also has a great book with that title), the Bible, the movie "Guess Who" with Bernie Mac, and Steve Harvey's TV interviews on various shows regarding his latest book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man."  (I bought this book and will most likely be blogging about it in the future. :)

God bless!