Paul Tripp: You do not have to be stuck. You can see conflicts resolved. You can see peace, and unity, and understanding, and love reign in your relationships. You can change.

Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministries. Join us as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.

Female Voice: I think we had both given up hope. No, it hadn't happened all at once, but that's where we were--hopeless! Our house had become more a hotel than a home. No, we weren't fighting all the time; and yes, we did manage to talk our way through the bills and the details of our schedule. But our friendship was just gone.

There was little intimacy between us, physically, or any other way. We had read all the books, and we had tried all the skills, but things just seemed to get worse. I think we pulled away from one another because we were both so tired of getting hurt.

We didn't have a marriage, at least not the kind the Bible describes. We were living in a state of marital detente. One day, I unloaded my heart to a friend. She was incredibly surprised and very supportive at the same time. She told me that she had been in the same place a few years back, and she said she would not stand by and let me give up hope.

It seemed pretty intimidating the first time we met with Barbara and her husband to talk. But it ended up being easier than we thought. And although nothing changed that night, we left with more hope than we had had for a long time.

We met together once a week for months, and not only did God completely rebuild our marriage, He gave us the best two friends we've ever had. I don't know how else to say it, but I wish more people could experience what we now enjoy. And I wonder how many people we see every day who are just as stuck as we once were.

Music: "Night and Day" by Rod Stewart

Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you night and day
Day and night, why is it so
That this longing for you follows wherever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you night and day

Kate Crowley: This is Right Here, Right Now. Don't go away. In just a moment, Paul shares some positive steps to deal with conflict. And be sure to tell your friends that they can listen to Paul Tripp on the web at paultrippministries.org. And while you're logged on, find out why War of Words, Paul's book on the power of words, can provide you the freedom you need for successful communication.

Just visit paultrippministries.org. That's all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org. More on conflict in today's study, "Concrete Steps to Real Change" on Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp.

Rachel's Story of Change

Paul Tripp: I really do wish that every one of your relationships would benefit from what Rachel's relationship benefited from. I really wish that all of your relationships would experience the kind of change that Rachel's relationships experienced. And I really do believe it's why I'm talking to you on the radio right now.

I really do believe that that change is possible for your relationships. And so I would ask you, "Are you stuck? How do you know? How do you know what it means to be stuck?"

You may be thinking, "Well, Paul, give me some signs of what it looks like to be stuck."

Has distance replaced intimacy--there's a sign. Do you find it hard to talk about things that once weren't so hard to talk about that you, in fact, need to talk about? There's a sign! Do you use words as weapons of hurt instead of using them as tools of help, comfort, mercy, grace, encouragement, as you once used them? There's a sign!

Do you spend more time thinking about the behavior of the other person than you do thinking about your own heart? There's a sign! Do you find it hard to resolve conflicts and to solve problems? There's a sign! Do you wonder how your life would be different if this person would have never, ever come into your life? There's a sign! Do you find it a burden or a joy to serve the other person? There's a sign!

Do you replay and replay the DVD in your brain of moments in that relationship, over and over again? There's a sign! Do you hide behind busyness? There's a sign! Is your relationship moving in a good direction or worsening as the days pass by? There's a sign!

I've given you many signs of what it looks like to be in a stuck relationship, and here's what I'm going to ask you to do right now. I'm going to ask you to stop and take an assessment. Look at your friendships right now. Are you stuck in things you shouldn't be stuck in there? Are you stuck in low grade irritation or maybe all the way too explosive anger? Take an assessment. Are you stuck? Is that relationship going in a positive direction of peace; or are the patterns of conflict and withdrawal increasing?

Look at your family. Parents, how are you doing with your children? Children, how you doing with your parents? Have you been willing to live with things you shouldn't-you just shouldn't live with? Are you stuck?

Take a look at your marriage. Husbands and wives, how are you doing there? Are you, are you stuck in patterns of conflict? Do you ever, silently, secretly regret that you're in that relationship? Do you have that low grade irritation in your relationship that occasionally explodes into anger?

Look at your work relationships. How conflictual are your relationships at work? Are they going in a positive direction of peace; or is the acrimony, the conflict, the distance, increasing? Take a look at your relationships with your neighbors. How are you doing with your neighbors? Are those relationships at peace? Where are your relationships in need of Biblical steps of change?

Music: "You're The Only One" by Dolly Parton

I found out the hard way and I'm never gonna break your heart
I know too late and I don't want to break your heart
Guess I had to go away just to find what I left behind
You're the only one you're the only one
Take me back to where we started from
And let's make it now like we made it then
This ol' heart ain't gonna break your heart again

Five Concrete Steps From Scripture

Paul Tripp: I love the fact that the promises in the Bible aren't a spiritual bait and switch. You know, sort of like, I get this emotionally lifting promise followed by practical mystery. No! The Bible is actually very direct and is very, very practical. It's not some mystically encouraging book.

In fact, the Bible doesn't really put before us some kind of other-world spirituality. The Bible is really a book about reality. It's about real people, living in a real world that really is broken, with a real God who gives us real grace and leads us to practical steps of real change that reconcile and restore our lives so we can live as we were really meant to live. The Bible is all about reality.

And so, I want to introduce to you Biblical steps for changing a relationship. If you want a relationship in your life to change, these steps are how the change will take place. Now you've got to hear this as I begin--that the order of the steps are important. And the second thing I'd like to say is you stay at a certain step until the work is complete. Each one of these steps is not an event; each one of these steps pictures a process.

Here's step one. I will call it confession and forgiveness. What does step one help us to do? Step one helps us to deal with the past. If change is ever going to take place, it has to begin with an honest confession of wrongs done, followed by an honest and humble granting of forgiveness.

What confession and forgiveness actually does is confession and forgiveness actually enables us to shut the door on the past. What often happens in our relationships, because we haven't confessed and because we haven't forgiven, we drag the past with us. And when we're in a moment of conflict, it's not more than a few minutes than we're no longer discussing what happened today.

We've actually emptied the gunnysack of past hurts, past conflict, and we're throwing the past at one another. You could put away the past. You do it by honestly confessing what you have done wrong. You do that by honestly granting forgiveness for what the other person has done wrong, and when each person makes confession, and when each person grants forgiveness--then we're beginning to be able to move on.

Step two is trusting and entrusting. That helps us to build a foundation for the future. I need to do two things here. First, I need to do everything that I can to present myself as a trustworthy person. I must be faithful to what I've promised. I must be clear in what I said. I must be honest; I must be open; I must be serving; I must not be manipulative. I must be a trustworthy person.

And then I need to make the choice to entrust myself to you. It's the willingness to be vulnerable. If you're not willing to be vulnerable, then you're protecting yourself from the person, and that's not an act of relationship; that's an act of isolation. So confession and forgiveness--dealing with the past must be followed by trusting and entrusting; that's building a foundation for the future. I determine to be trustworthy, and I make the choice to entrust myself to you.

That leads to the third step--uprooting and planting. This is where we make the process of change very concrete and very specific. We ask the question, "What must be uprooted from our relationship?"

It's sort of like a garden. When you plant a garden, the first thing you do--you have to uproot all the things that were there so that you can plant the new flowers that you want to plant. What are the old behaviors that we must not do anymore? What are the things that we've said, the things that we've done that we must no longer do?

And what new behaviors must be planted in that place--New ways of love, new ways of unity, new ways of understanding, new ways of self-sacrificing service? Confession and forgiveness--dealing with the past; trusting and entrusting--building a foundation for the future; uprooting and planting--making change specific.

Here's the fourth one: "Love your neighbor as yourself." This establishes a Biblical style of relationship. Here's what I need to ask: What does it look like, in self-sacrificing ways, to love this person in this situation?

Love is never general. Love is concrete and specific-- I'm not just loving a generic person. Who is this person? What do they deal with every day? What are the pressures, and opportunities, and temptations, and responsibilities that they face every day? How can I love this person in this situation?

Now, let me repeat: You begin with confession and forgiveness that deals with the past; then you move to trusting and entrusting--building a foundation for the future; you uproot old behaviors and plant new behaviors making change specific; you determine to love your neighbor as yourself in concrete, specific ways, establishing a Biblical style of relationship.

Here's the fifth step. If your brother sins against you, this is dealing Biblically with difficulty. Even though you've confessed and forgiven, and trusted and entrusted, and uprooted and planted, and you're loving your neighbor as yourself, you're not going to become perfect people overnight--there's going to be sin and wrong in your relationship. And you have to establish a Biblical pattern of dealing with that. You have to determine this is what we're going to do when wrong takes place.

My wife and I gave one another the right to call, 'foul.' To say, "Wait a minute, this is wrong. You need to stop." We decided not to live that way with one another. You have to come up with some kind of habitual way of dealing with difficulty as it comes up.

And then the sixth step is, watch and pray. Change has been accomplished; change has been maintained, and now it needs to be protected. You protect it by being humble. You realize that those problems can return if you let down your guard. You realize that your relationships are a war zone. You keep alert, and you watch and pray.

Here are the six steps:

1. Confession and forgiveness--dealing with the past.

2. Trusting and entrusting-- building a foundation for the future.

3. Uprooting and planting--making change specific.

4. Love your neighbor as yourself.

5. Establishing a Biblical style of relationship--if your brother sins against you--dealing Biblically with difficulty.

6. Watch and pray--change has been accomplished, maintained, and protected.

Isn't it wonderful that change doesn't have to be a mystery? The Bible really does lay out progressive and practical steps of change. Confess, trust, uproot and plant, love your neighbor as yourself, deal honestly with sin, watch and pray. There can be change in your relationships.

Music: "It Is Well" by Rebecca St. James

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say
Even so, it is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul

Where Do You Need to Apply These Steps?

Paul Tripp: So where do you need to apply God's steps of change to your relationships? I know it's needed! You know how I know that? Because I know it's needed in my own relationships. I find going through this material to be very convicting, because it points out places where I've just settled for a human second-best.

Maybe you're a parent, and your relationship with one of your children has just disintegrated. Boy! You know that that can happen. Maybe you're a husband, and you know that you have to change things with your wife. Maybe you're a friend, and you've just watched a friendship evaporate or explode.

Maybe you're a child, and you've never really dealt with your anger toward your parents. Maybe you're a sibling living in self-imposed distance with somebody that's actually related to you--How sad is that? Maybe you're a neighbor who's living in a day by day war with your neighbor, and it's constant irritation, and impatience, and acrimony. Maybe you're a worker, and your relationship with your boss is riddled by conflict.

Perhaps you're a wife, and you're just beginning to realize how bitter you actually are against your husband. Maybe you're a leader, and you can't believe how you've been treated by those that you lead. Or maybe you're alone because it's been the only way you've been successful in avoiding the hurt.

Where do you need to step out in faith and courage, to grab ahold of hope, and to apply God's steps of change, and keep applying God's steps of change, and continue to apply God's steps of change until that relationship that is struggling really does become what God wants for it to be?

You see, think again with me that the steps of change are not a mystery. God's made them very specific. You first start with confession and forgiveness--you've got to deal with the problems of the past, or you'll drag them into the present again and again.

You've got to trust and entrust--building a foundation for the future. Trust is the fabric of a good relationship. You've got to present yourself as trustworthy, and you've got to be willing to entrust yourself to the other person.

You have to be willing to uproot and plant. Identify those old behaviors that you must not do any more--Those old attitudes that must be gone, and you have to identify what needs be planted in their place--Good things that make change specific.

You have to determine that you are going to love your neighbor as yourself, establishing a Biblical style of relationship. You need to ask the question, "What does it actually, practically, functionally mean to love this person in this particular situation?"

You have to deal honestly with difficulty, because it's going to happen--if your brother sins against you. You know that you're a flawed person, and difficulty is going to happen once again.

You have to watch and pray. Even when change is accomplished, it's got to be maintained, and it's got to be protected. Confess and forgive; trust and entrust; uproot and plant; love your neighbor as yourself; if your brother sins against you; watch and pray--six steps of practical change. You do not have to be stuck.

You can see conflicts resolved. You can see peace, and unity, and understanding, and love reign in your relationships. You can change.

You Are Never Alone in Your Relationships

Paul Tripp: The good thing is that you and I are never alone in our relationships. I don't know about you, but that is a huge comfort to me. Here's what that means. It means there is someone behind each moment of your confession. There is someone behind each word of forgiveness you ever speak. There is someone behind each admission of wrong. There's someone behind each attempt you make to do a better thing.

There's someone behind each commitment of love and each time you follow through with that commitment in self-sacrificing acts of goodness. There's someone behind each time you deal with being sinned against in the right way. There's someone behind each moment where you are living watchfully and each time you pray.

Who is behind? Your Lord, Jesus Christ! He is a God of power and a God of grace. He is a God who is able to do in you, and through you, and for you what you could not do for yourself.

You see, your potential for change is not based on your track record. Your potential for change is not based on the size of the relational problems that you may now be dealing with. Your potential for change is literally a person, and His name is Jesus!

And as you move toward one another, now committed to reconcile what has been broken, now committed to put peace where conflict has once lived, He moves into your relationships. He moves there with grace and with love to change you from the inside out, right here, right now.

Kate Crowley: Paul Tripp and finding peace and resolve from the series, "Conflict," on today's edition of Right Here, Right Now. For more help on speaking words of grace, take a look at War of Words, a book by Paul Tripp which examines the power of God-honoring speech and the power of words. That's War of Words, available at our website, paultrippministries.org.

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This is Kate Crowley, and for all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries, we want to remind you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here, right now. Have a great weekend.