I Just Thought You Ought to Know
Have you ever craved the space to be able to say all of those things that you have rehearsed in your mind? The things you should've said. What about the things you really meant, but maybe didn't articulate correctly? Or the dogmatic opinion you held on something that really offended someone? Reality is, we don't always get a do-over. Sometimes we are left to deal with the deafening silence of all of the said, and unsaid things that caused a shift in our normal. That is the hardest silence, really. The one where everything has been said.
I have been on a trip in my prayer life; making a correction of errors that I may not get the chance to make right this side of eternity. My prayer remains that my words never caused one to turn away from the faith because of my ignorance or my inconsiderate lack of care in how what I said came across. In my college speech class, my professor was always reiterating the fact that communication lies not in what I say, but in what the hearer perceives me to be saying. Clear, articulate communication is so important. But here's the skinny on communication: sanctification is the lifelong process by which I learn to be more like my heavenly Father. This process does not end when I hit a milestone birthday. This process lasts a lifetime. This means that who I am today, how I respond and react, and what I speak to someone will refine over time. As long as I am in pursuit of Christ my thought process will adapt and change to be more like the mind of my Father.
Is this an excuse or crutch for the damage we have done in our less spiritually mature days of following Christ? No, it is not. It is however an opportunity for those that I have had contact with, good or bad, to look at me through the lens of grace and mercy. The Bible tells us that if we cannot forgive humans we walk with on earth, God the Father cannot forgive us one day after a while. My question to you is simple.
Can you look back over time and see where you have been dogmatic over the wrong thing? Have you bruised a relationship because of your fight to be right spiritually?
Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. I would like to meet "They." I would tell them that we are without excuse. We do not have to remain in our ignorance. I once heard a man say that choosing to remain in your ignorance is called stupidity. He went on to say, you can't fix stupid.
As long as I had followed the Lord, I felt a leading to be in a skirt or dress at church. I was dogmatic about this for years. To a fault, any female child in my home would be in a skirt at the Lord's house as long as they were under my roof. Even with my tennis shoes on, even in my nursing clinical scrubs, and even just around the house I had to be in a skirt. I felt holier this way. Surely this pleased the Lord that my dress attire was on point, regardless of the condition of my heart. (Disclaimer... if you and God have an understanding that this is how He wants you to dress, and this is the lifestyle He is calling you to then by all means follow that unction and obey it.) Don't miss what I am saying here. In my life, I may have led people astray with my very dogmatic view that I had to dress this way to win God's approval of me. I know that I can never be good enough, dress holy enough, or work to have god's approval. He loves me for me, and He loved me at my worst when I was a hostile enemy to Him. I just thought you ought to know that I am so sorry if I imposed this on you. I never meant to make anyone feel inferior. I never meant to make anyone feel like holiness was dependent upon clothing. I was working the thing out in my own life. We live and learn. And then we have the scales fall off our eyes and see what He really means by what He says. He calls us to modesty regardless and there are some amazingly modest options out there that consist of pants.
That season I went through where I felt the need to rock the skirt and not consider the compassion of Christ in my own life, was not an assault on your faith. I was learning, growing through how to read God's word, apply it, and walk it out. What should have happened in my ignorance is that I rallied around you to sit with you, cry with you, laugh with you, and remind you of who God says He will be in your circumstance. It was never my job to give you a, or the solution to your circumstance. Forgive me for not just listening. The body rallies around a wounded body part. We would never willingly hold out our blood gushing finger and let it just bleed. We quickly aim to stop the bleeding. This should've been my first response. I am learning.
And then there was the time that the weight of a situation was so crippling, so overwhelming that all I could do was go into overdrive and try to control the situation. It is our human nature to want to fix the problem. When we can't, we use our words to try to control people. In my tenure of walking with the Lord, I have tested and tried His strong arm in my life. He has proven faithful. I still haven't found any scripture about me being called to worry in the storm. We serve a God who sees the train from the end to the beginning. He is not shaken, altered in state, or biting His nails wondering how it will all pan out. He has got it under control. Growth is a funny thing though. Growth for our 6-foot 2-inch son, who is 16 years old, has brought so much pain in his knees and feet. He bears the marks from 6 inches of growth in height in only a 3-month span of time. Isn't growth just like that in my life and yours? There are growing pains. We have spurts where we are ravenously hungry for whatever we can get our hands on, and then one morning we wake up and we are taller, closer, more confident in the Lord.
As a Christ follower my aim must always be to follow, and not try to lead or reinvent the wheel. My question to you today is one of deep thinking. Searching yourself, really.
Where have you made a bit of a mess along the way in your journey with respect to relationships? Where were you too lax in how you handled the Word of God in your own life, and as a direct result bruised someone? Where were you over the top in how you interpreted the scriptures, and as a direct result you imposed a conviction on someone else?
I am reminded daily that conviction is God's way of moving us closer to Him, His thinking, and His will over our own. Guilt is self-imposed and it happens when we know to do right, but just don't do it, James 4:17. Guilt torments us if we pursue the thing we know is hostile to the Lord. Conviction on the other hand changes us because it is the gift of the Father, the Holy Spirit, at work in our lives. What love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called sons and daughters; and if sons and daughters we are no longer slaves but heirs. A loving Father lovingly disciplines His own with restoration as the goal.
Seek peace and pursue it. This is the will of the Father.
Admitting when you are wrong is also honoring to the Lord. Do that.
It is so freeing.
