How to stay calm when others are in conflict

You're making breakfast, enjoying your coffee. You've got a full day ahead of you, and you are eager to start and get some stuff done. Then you sit down to look at your emails.

And the first one you read is full of emotion. The person is frustrated, upset, and angry at somebody else. And you can already imagine all of the conversations that you will have to have to resolve the issue.

The conflict seems like a distraction, like something that will pull you away from some other work that's actually important.

At least that's what I felt, until I had a mini-revelation the other day.

was doing some listening prayer around my leadership, asking God some questions about a particular situation in which some team members were involved in conflict. And I remembered how Jesus saw conflict or personal crisis in the lives of His disciples.

Jesus always saw crisis or conflict in the lives of his team members as an opportunity for growth.

He could expand his organization only as far as the people in his organization grew. Every crisis could help people go to a new level, which would in turn help his team reach new possibilities.

All of a sudden, I realized that I needed to receive conflicts as an opportunity to participate in the growth of people, and I felt re-energized to engage. Rather than wanting to close my eyes and hope the conflict went away, I saw an opportunity to help people in areas where normally I don’t have a voice.

But I want to share with you something that I did that helped me know how to engage. It's not just about realizing you need to engage in people's growth. It's also knowing how to engage.

I asked God this question: "God, what do you want to grow in this person in this season?" There were multiple people involved in the issue, and I quickly had a thought about each of them that I sensed was from God. I wrote them down.

This conflict is the kind of conflict that will probably take a month or two to figure out. But I now feel re-envisioned to help each person involved in a specific way. I may never tell them what I heard God say, but I have a renewed perspective as to what God is doing in the midst of what at first seemed to be a distraction to my busy day.

What conflicts or situations do you need to engage in with a new perspective?