Using Metaphors As Change Agents

Metaphors play a central role in many types of communication, including conflict. Ask people to describe a conflict they're part of; and, most likely, their answer will include a metaphor or two: "We got into a battle over how to spend the Thanksgiving offering" or "He's just so difficult to get along with. It's like having a terrorist on the board."

Metaphors reveal not only the feelings we associate with particular episodes of conflict, they also reveal the intensity of those feelings. This can be useful if conflict participants are finding it difficult to verbalize the emotions they are associating with the dispute or with the state of the relationships they have with the others involved. Metaphors similarly help with understanding these same things as others are experiencing them. In other words, even if someone is not having difficulty understanding his own emotions and relationship-perspectives, metaphors used by others will help him to understand their emotions and relationship-perspectives.

Another function of metaphors not often considered is their potential role as change agents in pursuit of biblical solutions. It may be possible to change the dynamics (and ultimately the outcomes) of a particular conflict simply by changing the metaphors that are currently in play.

I once had a deacon who developed quite a critical spirit over the course of a few months. I noticed that he began to refer to himself as "a watchdog for the congregation." Following more than a few such references on various occasions, I shared with this deacon how his behavior was making me and the rest of the staff feel like we were Republicans in front of a Democrat-controlled Senate hearing. Prior to this, the deacon had not considered how caustic and anti-leadership his behavior had become. The change in metaphor helped him to understand and to change back to more biblical fulfillment of his role.

One prominent Scriptural example of using metaphors as a change agent in conflict comes from the story of David and Nabal in 1 Samuel 25. Nabal acted rudely toward David and his men, refusing to show them any hospitality, something they desperately needed while they hid from Saul in the desert. David would have taken revenge and killed Nabal, had not Abigail, Nabal's wife, used a metaphor to change David's mind. Abigail spoke of the Lord making "a lasting dynasty for my master, because the fights the Lord's battles" (25:28). She expressed confidence in how the Lord would "hurl away the lives of your enemies as from the pocket of a sling" (25:29). Finally, Abigail also offered that if David did not murder Ahab, "my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself" (25:31).

Abigail's statements were designed to remind David of his battle with Goliath. David had hurled away the life of his enemy, Goliath, from the pocket of a sling. Once hit, Goliath staggered and fell. All of this took place, of course, because the battle ultimately was not David's, but the Lord's, as David himself repeatedly made clear (see 1 Samuel 17). Up to that point, David had been thinking of Nabal as an evil ingrate (25:21) and as an aggressor who had "hurled" verbal spears at his men for no reason. Abigail changed David's perspective by invoking his battle with Goliath as a metaphor for the blessings that come to David because he fights for the Lord and not simply for himself.

Application Questions:

1. Think of a conflict in which you have been involved recently. What metaphors do you remember being in play?
2. What feelings do those metaphors reveal?
3. If the conflict were current, what new metaphors might you be able to introduce in your own thinking or to the other party that might change the conflict and move everyone involved toward biblical resolution?

Note: For a fuller discussion of the role metaphor plays in conflict, see "The Road to H___ Is Paved With Metaphors" by Howard Gadline, Andrea Kupfer, and Christopher Honeyman in "The Negotiator's Fieldbook" edited by Andrea Kupfer Schneider and Christopher Honeyman.