Staying ahead of conflict on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association

of Certified Biblical Counselors, where we seek to provide biblical solutions to the problems that people face.

Our guests this week are Jim and Caroline Neuheiser. They are counselors certified with ACBC.

Jim is actually a fellow with ACBC and is a board member, and he is also the executive director of IBCD, the

Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship in Southern California. We are happy they're

here with us this week. They're a delightful couple to know, and we're talking this week

about conflict, but not conflict in the way we ordinarily would think of it.

Often when we think about conflict, we're talking about resolving conflict that has already

happened. And I wanted the Newheisers to join us this week to talk about staying ahead of conflict,

to have practices in your marriage that work to undercut conflict before it happens. So Jim and Caroline, we're happy that you're here.

And I wonder if you could talk to us about nurturing attitudes in your marriage for one another

that work to undermine conflict before it happens.

I think it's excellent that you're starting with this because biblical counseling wants to

prevent problems. We'd rather have one another care happening in the church where people

learning how to handle conflict before it even happens, how to prevent it.

I think the key to having the right attitude towards the person is having the right

attitude towards Christ and that if you see yourself as chief of sinners and your daily

marveling that God shows you mercy, then when someone sins against you or you see things building,

that you get squeezed and grace is going to come out rather than law and wrath.

And so I think it's primarily your attitude towards the Lord and having a gracious disposition

based on the gospel because as two sinners living together, there will be tension.

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