Disciplines for Life/Meditation: Not Just for Gurus

From Gospel Translations

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All couples fight. Styles of conflict may differ, but friction is inevitable. This is true for any two people who relate closely, be they roommates, co-workers, siblings, or lab partners. But because marriage is such an intimate relationship, fights between spouses are some of the most intense.

Nancy and I found this out soon after we married. She was used to cold warfare, I to Churchillian debates on the floor of Parliament. When conflict arose she withdrew behind a Berlin Wall of silence while I launched into emotional debate. She became intimidated. I got frustrated. The conflicts got worse.

So we talked about it, just the two of us, and we looked into the Bible to get some wisdom. We began to realize that our styles of handling conflict reflected worldly pat- terns of living that needed to change. We asked ourselves these questions: What does it mean for a husband to love his wife in the midst of a fight? What does it mean for a wife to submit to her husband when she’d rather catch the first plane out of town? What does it mean to “not let the sun go down on your anger”? How is it that “a soft answer turns away wrath”? We prayed together about these issues and asked God to help us apply the Bible’s principles. We also asked him to help us resolve conflicts more quickly and learn something productive from each one.

In effect, what we did was practice the spiritual discipline of meditating on God’s Word with the purpose of changing our thinking...and our lives.

“Stop allowing yourself to be molded by means of the spirit of this world, but continue to be transformed in your soul by renewing your mind,” Paul told the Romans.^[2] In our marital conflicts, my mind had been molded to fight in a selfish, aggressive way that hurt Nancy and damaged our relationship. How did this happen? The “spirit of this world” used past examples and experiences to get me to believe this was the way to fight. My mind had adopted manipulative methods rather than the Bible’s clear command to be “gentle, not quarrelsome” (1Ti 3:3). Though I was certainly out of line, my behavior was not unique. Often our thinking conforms to the world’s pattern and we’re not even aware of it.

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