Anyone that has lived in this world for very long does not have a hard time believing that CONFLICT is inevitable. Even from a young age, a child discovers conflict. It might be a struggle with a sibling, the dog grabs his favorite toy from his hands, mom or dad won't let them color all over the wall, you name it. The point is even the youngest of children are faced with conflict.
Conflict is when two parties do not agree on any one matter. Depending on the importance factor to each party will be the deciding factor into which weapon they might pull out to use to ultimately "get their way." Afterall, that is really what ALL conflict boils down to...I want MY WAY!
What are some weapons we use as adults in our conflicts in relationships?
- Cold shoulder treatment
- Silent treatment
- Passive-aggressive behavior
- Guilt
- Verbal attack
- Withholding our love (yes, even sex)
The list above are just a few of the most common weapons couples use to solve their conflict today. The funny thing is when you actually look at this list, you most likely will agree with us that not one of these will be effective without our relationship suffering from it. In other words, we might get what we want, but is the COST worth it? So often, during the heat of the moment, we do not have the ability to think things through clearly. It is not until after the fact that we realize we have taken a bad situation and made it WORSE.
Today we would like to focus on the words on this image from the movie War Room. 
Is this a weapon used in your relationship? If so, how often do you pull this weapon out and use it? Do you go to this first or is it used as a last resort once things are really bad? Have you allowed it to become dusty and or rusty?
God has given ALL relationships, parent/child, siblings, relatives, couples, co-workers, etc. this POWERFUL weapon. As in any case, if we do not purposefully pull out this weapon and use it, we will never reap the benefits of it. So many conflicts and strife can be reduced GREATLY or resolved if we would simply involve God in our relationship. You might be asking, but how? Simple, PRAY!
God gave me an acronym for the word "PRAY:"
P- First PRAISE Him for all of His goodness; When we actually take time to think of ALL He has done for us, PRAISE is a natural response
R - REVERE Him! God is the Creator of the Universe; the Creator of ALL; there is NONE other like Him; give God Honor and REVERE Him
A - ASK for your petition; God is waiting to hear from you; He wants to be included in every aspect of your life; He wants to be brought into your conflicts at the beginning, not the end to do the clean-up work; He wants you to ASK His guidance from the beginning so He can help avoid a BIG mess
Y - YIELD to His timing; Another word for YIELD is surrender; God wants us to know that He is on our side and will not leave us or forsake us; He wants us to know that He is working in our circumstances, even when we do not feel it; God wants us to know that a DELAY is NOT a DENIAL; His timing is perfect.
Without a doubt, PRAYER is the most POWERFUL weapon we own. Just think we did not even have to pay for this weapon! Our Big Brother, Jesus Christ, took care of this bill! Thank you, Jesus! Let's not take this gift of PRAYER from Jesus for granted. We have the MOST POWERFUL weapon to use at our finger tips 24/7, but it will not accomplish one thing if we do not activate it. God made PRAYER a two-way relationship...We Praise; Revere; Ask; Yield. As we YIELD, we listen to what He has to say to us.
We encourage you the next time conflict arises in your life, and it will, pull out the PRAYER weapon and allow God to start work from the beginning on the conflict!
