We’d been dating for several months when he dropped the bombshell.
In all fairness, he didn’t realize it was a bombshell. He just shared his political leanings, including how he and his family of origin typically voted in local, state, and national elections. It was a random conversation, nothing emotionally charged. Nothing to indicate a significant shift. Just information shared in passing between two people who were dating but still getting to know each other.
The problem? I was raised in a family that was rooted firmly and squarely in the opposing party.
I don’t remember how the conversation even started, but I do remember where we were and how I felt when it happened. The moment he identified his political affiliation, I felt like I had been slapped. We stood on opposite sides of an impossible war. There was no reconciling this difference. As much as we had in common, including our Christian faith, this was a massive and unbreachable divide. And just that fast, I considered ending our relationship. How could we possibly move forward?
I’m a bit embarrassed now to admit how shocked and appalled I felt at learning his political affiliation. I thought he was a good Christian man who loved Jesus and tried to follow Him in his day-to-day life. How could he side with a political party that seemed to be clearly on the opposing side? How could he identify with any party other than the one I voted for? My family history is thick with patriotism and men who served our country in the military during multiple international wars. I respected these relatives of mine, both living and deceased. A sense of national pride was core to my family’s identity.
With one simple, offhand admission, my view of this person — as a man, a potential husband, and a believer — completely changed.
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m surprised how quickly I devalued and disregarded him because of our apparent political differences. To my young and idealistic self, this was a deal-breaker, a relationship-ender. There was only one seemingly right answer to this test question, and he’d answered incorrectly. Because I equated real faith with a specific political party, his political leanings made me question the legitimacy of his faith and thus the legitimacy of our relationship. And somewhere along the way, I’d come to believe you could only be in a deep and meaningful relationship with people you agreed with, especially about something this important.
When I told him as much, his face mirrored my own shock, but for a different reason. He couldn’t understand my disappointment or the arrogance and judgment that came packaged in my voting record. At first he thought I must be joking. Then his chuckle of laughter turned defensive. I don’t blame him. My rejection of him as a person had been quick and complete, and was because of something he didn’t believe warranted such a divide.
By some minor miracle of grace, he forgave my arrogance and we continued the conversation. And it’s a good thing, too, because we’ve enjoyed a beautiful marriage together for more than two decades now. In those twenty years, we’ve walked through many elections and even more conversations. And I came to discover, not long after that initial conversation, that we had far more commonalities than differences when it came to our convictions. He was indeed a man of deep faith, a faith that in many ways was stronger than my own. I just hadn’t withheld my judgment long enough to stay engaged, to connect, and to listen.
It’s good to be principled, to hold deep convictions and live them out with consistency and passion. But when we love our principles and positions to the exclusion of the people standing right in front of us, we’ve lost sight of the gospel — our good news.
You see, Jesus entered into relationship with us when we were actively rebelling against Him. We stood on the opposite side of an impossible divide. There was no way to reach a compromise, no negotiating or converting. We were separated, completely and irrevocably. He had every right to exact judgment and walk away, to let us die in our isolation. He was 100 percent in the right, and we were 100 percent in the wrong.
But rather than walking away, Jesus walked toward, knowing we could do nothing to bridge the divide ourselves. Romans 5:8 (NIV) says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus chose to reconcile us to God at His own cost, taking on Himself the judgment we deserved. Why? Because He loves us.
Instead of rejection, grace. Instead of punishment, love.
Staying engaged in conversation with someone you disagree with is difficult under any circumstances, but even more so when the topic of discussion is emotionally charged. This could include conversations around parenting, politics, health care and choices, end-of-life decisions, religion, finances, morality, education, legislation . . . you get the idea. We have more than enough scenarios in which we might clash. However, avoiding, retaliating, or shutting down difficult conversations and the people you disagree with actually causes you more harm than you realize. It stunts your spiritual growth, inhibits your emotional maturity, limits your pool of potential relationships, and may keep you in a place of loneliness and isolation. Few people want to be friends with a person who is always right.
Navigating difficult conversations isn’t easy. If you feel overwhelmed by or resistant to the idea, I get it. I would rather avoid conflict and tension at all costs. But we have a Jesus who, rather than dodging disagreements, pressed into relationships. That’s the kind of person I want to be too.
If conflict makes you want to shut down, tune out, or walk away, consider these five practices that can help you love well even when you disagree.
1. Stay grounded in your gospel identity. When different convictions and positions become a dividing line in our relationships, it’s often a result of misplaced identity. For example, if my identity is rooted in my political party, I will struggle to connect authentically with anyone who doesn’t share my position. However, you and I are called to find our identity in the saving love and grace of Christ. He defines who we are—not our various positions and affiliations. When we remember that our foremost identity is a sinner saved by grace, we will find it is much easier to connect with other sinners saved by grace.
2. Stay curious and ask questions. There is a direct relationship between my emotional state and my ability to stay curious. The more charged I feel, the less I’m able to stay curious. I find that simply reminding myself to stay curious keeps my emotions in check. How did they come to that conviction? What part of their story am I not aware of? Why might they feel so passionate about their position or so threatened by mine? Staying curious is not easy, but it is possible. And sincere questions are the open door to that kind of engagement.
3. Listen. Listening isn’t simply allowing someone to talk while you formulate your rebuttal. Listening involves your ears, your eyes, and your heart. True listening requires you to put a pause on your position and defense and instead connect with the person. It requires you to resist judgment and instead listen to the words, heart, and intent of the person speaking. It means staying in a place where you want to be in relationship more than you want to be right.
4. Communicate empathy. This may be obvious, but people want to feel heard, including you. Once you’ve listened and asked questions, find at least one connecting point to which you can honestly say, “I can see how you would feel that way” or “I understand where you’re coming from.” Empathy is possible even when you disagree. And it will go a long way to bridge a divide, even if neither of you changes your position.
5. Restate the value of the relationship. At the end of every hard conversation—and perhaps multiple times throughout—it’s critical that you remind yourself and the other person that what matters most is the relationship. This will keep you focused on the ultimate outcome you hopefully both want—a respectful, mature, thriving relationship—in spite of the potential messiness of the conversation. And if you persevere in your pursuit of this goal, you won’t just save the relationship, you’ll likely make it even stronger.
When you find out that someone you care about has a staunchly different opinion or belief than you, it’s so much easier to write them off or build an emotional wall. But what seems easiest in the moment won’t serve us or our relationships well.
It’s time to choose a different way, one that is more humble, curious, and compassionate.
Written by Michele Cushatt, an excerpt from Come Sit With Me.
Michele…? How timely is this? SO helpful in our current climate, and yet you wrote this long ago :). I’m so glad incourage shared this essay from Come Sit With Me. It’s evidence why this book is a treasure. xo
Totally agree!
I wish the world would read this! There is just so much intolerance, and even hate and violence, when it comes to political views. In our family of eight adult siblings, there is a very clear division of politics. When we get together as a group, one of my sisters in particular will start spewing some of her rhetoric…..we don’t allow it to get out of hand. We just remind each other that we don’t all share the same opinion, we respect that we have different/opposing opinions, but we love each other to the point that we will not let politics divide us. It works for us……thank God. Thanks for sharing your story.
What if you have agreed to disagree and keep a relationship, but the other person brings up a dividing topic every time you talk to them. I have a friend who does this. I could maintain the relationship, but have asked to not talk about the issues we disagree on just like we have done most of our lives, but she brings something up every single time. After a few years of this happening, I have found it easier to just keep a distance because every time I finish a conversation with her, I am agitated. And more than the topic itself, it’s the fact that she just can’t stop bringing things up. I think she feels like she’s being controlled with what she is able to say. I see it as a boundary to maintain a relationship. She can’t keep the boundary which In my translation is, she doesn’t respect me or my feelings.
So so good. Thank you.
Dear Michele………..I found your devotion very interesting this morning. I have had a similar situation with a good friend of mine since we were 2 years old. Our mothers were best friends and we lived right across the street. It was a close relationship and we were both confirmed and took our first Communion in the same church. She eventually got married and lost touch for a short time until my husband and I moved very close to them. We reunited and had fun together. She had gotten much deeper in her religion than I had had time for yet. She used to talk to me about this. After just a couple of years, she divorced her husband due to his drinking and abuse. I was working at the same company as she did. We still communicated a lot, but within a year, she found one of the VP’s there and fell in love and they moved to Georgia where he was from. Then she was busy with her Bible studies and the church. We lost touch again for a couple of years, but then I got stuck in a very dark season that I am still trying to make my way out with the help of God. My husband has dementia and the violent type. He refused to accept this and would not follow their orders. I stayed with him for 3+ years and was abused every single night until one night he tried to kill me. I had to have him evicted from the house so I was alone and I was forced to sell our house of 40 years as we both needed money. I was in no shape to take care of our large home. He went to one facility and me to another where I live now. He is now my ex-husband as it would not be possible to live together anymore. I am telling you this as it ties directly into my troubles. I found an old copy of an email that she had sent me and I thought, maybe I will try the phone number and hope it is still valid. Fortunately at that time it did and we were both so glad. Her husband had just died a year ago and she had no children so she was alone too. Of course, I was alone too. We talked at length every week sometimes twice. Her religion was so much more spiritual than before and she gave me advice. Then came the election, and we were just talking in general about who we were thinking of their policies. Somehow she got the idea without me telling her that I was NOT on her “side”. She started screaming to me about this and I tried to say we all have our own opinions and that should be accepted by friends or spouses. Without hesitation, she hung up on me. As a Christian, I was shocked that she would do that. There was no communication for over 1 year. I forgave her right away, as that is what God wants us to do, but I waited to call her as I did not want to be hung up on. I could not believe that she, as a very strong Christian or so she said, that she would not call me back, so I waited. Well, more than a year passed with nothing from her until my birthday came towards the end of this September, she sent me a card. In it she just said she was sorry she hung up on me. I need to think about this as what I am struggling with now, I don’t want to have another problem with her. What if I say the wrong thing? I will call her at some point, but I have to pray that I will say the right things. She also is a white nationalist which is prevalent in the South. That bothers me and I talked to my minister about it. She said you should really think hard before you call her as their views are so opposite from ours. Thank you Michele for your devotion. It has given me much to think about. So glad that you and your future husband solved your problem and I am so glad that your marriage is so happy. Blessing to you that you have a fine weekend. Love to you for your comforting words………………Betsy Basile
Michael love what you wrote. It so hard love the unsaved who don’t see your point of view. They can be people who think they are right. They can be people who try to put you down and say no your not right. They can be people who have to get their view over. You know what your saying it right and the truth about what has happened. They don’t want to know because they as I said still think your wrong and they don’t believe you. No matter what you say they have answer for you. Some Christian are like that too. You in times like this have to stop saying any more to them as they are not going to listen or believe you. You disagree with what they are saying as you know they are wrong. It hard you can a row with them. But would Jesus want you to that. In times like this you have to Keep your cool. Just say believe what you want in a nice way. Then say I am not taking about it anymore as your never going to believe I am telling the truth. Then pray for them and hand them into Jesus hand and leave it with Jesus. Through it all you have to still love them no matter what. It can be hard especially when you disagree with them as you know what they believe is wrong and you know your right. I been there with my Sister’s. As things have happened and I told the truth as Jesus would want me to do. They are not saved. They have had an answer for me. I said to my sister’s in the end you believe what you want as you will believe it anyway.Then they have in time seen I was telling the truth all along. But you know they will not admit it as they don’t want you saying anything to them. I have known they have seen in time I was telling the truth by their actions. If it was the other way round and I didn’t believe them. Then down the line found out I was wrong for not believing them. I go and say sorry as them to forgive me. I have done that in the past and say let’s put it behind us. But they go about there day and you never get the apology or sorry we should have believed you. You have to then pray to God and say God I forgive them. As Jesus said and one of my best friends said. In the situation with my sister’s it is so true. Jesus said it on the cross. Forgive them for they know not what they do. How true as they are not saved. Pray for their salvation as they will not change until they get saved. Keep showing them the love of Jesus by living your life in front of them for Jesus. Yes it will not be easy. As you spouse of and say plenty for them not saying sorry we should have believed you. But that is what the Devil would want. Then you end up sinning with your words as you are so cross they didn’t amit they they were wrong and say sorry. Yes it hard but you have to do the right thing in Jesus eyes. Remember you will never get the sorry until they get saved. It was the same when Jesus walk the earth people did the same to him. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little Enniskillen Co.Fermanagh N.Ireland xx
Twenty years ago I dated several brilliant and attractive men who voted opposite me, becoming rather attached to their good qualities. Even then, I found I could not bring myself to respect them and trust them in the way a daily intimate relationship would require, when we believed such opposite things about males and females and other things. And, importantly, they were not strong biblically. Things have gone south culturally since then, and personal values of faith or lack thereof seem more and more to underlay political values these days. There’s enough temptation for contempt from familiarity to creep into a relationship without having to contend with support for wild and crazy political ideas . God’s Word needs to be uncompromisingly what leads the man, without skipping over or denying important aspects of it. The parties are not what they once were, but it’s exceptional that your relationship works.
Your story reminds me so much of my own (even though I’m much younger)! So first, thanks for the encouragement that two people who vote differently can be married for twenty years just fine. We (my now-fiancé and I) had been dating for a few months, and I knew how he voted, but he didn’t know that I held different views, which had given me lots of time to build up anxiety that he would reject me when he found out we belonged to different political parties. I don’t remember how the conversation went, either, but it ended up with me having this big reveal/confession moment of telling him how I vote. It took a minute for the shock to wear off and for him to wrestle through the stereotypes he has of my party and how he knows that I don’t fit them, and then we talked about it a little more. The memory’s hazy. I was carrying so much anxiety about it, but he let me cry on his shoulder and release all that tension, and after a while, he read me a love poem he had written for me, that he had planned to give me later that week. It was a good lesson in remembering that the party lines we’ve drawn in the sand in the US don’t have to be the end-all-be-all for relationships. Since then, we’ve been talking about different specific issues slowly, and discovering that we generally agree on the theology and principle; it’s just the application and role of the government we disagree on. Anyway, I was really encouraged to hear that we aren’t the only ones and that, yes, it’s possible to be married while disagreeing politically. So thanks, Michele. <3