TRIBEWORK

Expecting and Surviving Disagreement

2012-01-27T15:34:00.002+08:00

There are some relational situations—with family, friends, or colleagues, even acquaintances—where, no matter how much we try and convince them regarding our sensibly reasoned rationale, it will not be acceptable to them.

Yet, though it remains unresolved, it’s not necessarily a problematic conflict.

It will only prove problematic when either they persist in trying to change our rationale for us or we insist on achieving their agreement or approval.

Many relational situations can remain happily in tension, given a sense of resilient grit that’s home to poise. This sense of grit starts in one and can become, eventually, the outlook of the other.

When Agreement May Be Too Much To Expect

In a less than a perfect world, the only way we may harmoniously live with each other is by, as the old saying goes, agreeing to disagree—us to them and them to us.

Disagreeable situations are not necessarily bad for them or us, unless we or they find such situations untenable—then there has to be conflict. Conflict in these circumstances is not a bad thing, for it brings parties to the negotiating table; however messy such negotiations, at times, play out.

We or they are being unreasonable when we or they expect everything to be to the peaceable liking of all parties, or even most. It has to be a rare outcome.

***

Then, the last thing we need in circumstances of varying disagreement is triangulation—when we or they take the grievances elsewhere; places they’ll neither be solved nor advanced in any way.

Avoiding The Folly Of Triangulation

Disagreements are always best kept between the parties concerned; any virulent extension to the field of debate is fraught with danger and wisdom is advised.

Triangulation occurs when we involve externals and those externals get back to the person we’re in conflict with. As a result, trust is dissolved. When intimacy is thrown to the dogs it is not quickly healed or redeemed.

Avoid involving others unless they’re prepared to help both parties, objectively, as will be seen by both parties, toward resolution.

Gathering Acceptance In Disagreement

Accepting something we cannot change is easier than we think.

Where we have no choice, and no options are presented, our thinking becomes never easier. In maturity, we humbly accept. We see them and us polarised by our own unique perspectives—those that God, alone, has given us; if we can accept each is trying their best to live for good purposes.

As we go out into our days, we ought to anticipate, even expect, disagreement.

These disagreements do not characterise enemies at battle, but mainly people passionate and concerned about life and the living of it. Holding our view is only one portion of God’s truth, for we miss so much of the complete picture.

Trying to understand another’s viewpoint is really saying to God, “Lord, give me more perspective here.”

***

All relationships can be enjoyed more when we accept disagreement: a freedom both issued and received because grace is made manifest in a love beyond selfish design.

Nurturing the Voice of Compassion

2012-01-26T11:45:00.001+08:00

“Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.”

~Louise J. Kaplan

Trickling within the soul, as a silently meandering stream, is the capacity—a Voice—of communal reason; the sense of empathy where thought is spared for another person; where their shoes, just for a moment, fit our feet.

Compassion, it is true, it found welling from the soul of those who have suffered a little (or a lot); those who have endured, and surpassed, a philosophical adolescence.

That nuance of compassion, though, provident of our endurance, is limited to our experience—there must be so much more compassion available for acquisition. Our God of compassion—Jesus, no less—has it in copious quantity; the Living Water, the well of which, cannot be plumbed.

Operating in this way, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that Jesus has sent from the Father, is the Voice of Compassion. It is availed to us according to our investment in developing it—the ability to hear the Spirit in the motions of life.

The Gift Of Blessing

The Lord affords us the precious acquisition of that which we make the most important.

This is the ability to focus—unfortunately, it’s become an overused term.

This gift of blessing—to choose the direction of our focus—is best wisely chosen; if we choose to venture toward the development of the Voice of Compassion there will be vast personal and interpersonal flow-on blessings. The most commanding of these is manifest personally.

Compassion – The Elixir For Selfish Traits

Pushing down selfish traits, like self-pity, narcissism, covetousness, and pleasure-seeking, is most effectually accomplished through the nurture of this Voice of Compassion.

The willingness to focus on others is a selfsame willingness not to focus on the self.

Every honest person that enthusiastically treks on their spiritual journey must, with regular cognisance, have encountered the predilection to selfishness. Compassion is a powerful tool taking us the other way.

The Voice of Compassion is hearing the words of God as opposed to the words of the flesh. It is a widened sphere of concern.

Compassion – The Kindness Of Persistent Mercy

God’s merciful compassion is exemplified in perhaps no better way than by persistence—it never gives up. And as God continues to forgive us evermore, by the shimmering grace of redemption’s seed, we also are to nurture compassion that has no end. (Let’s not confuse this, though, with naïve trust—compassion is not about lining up to get hurt.)

The kindness of persistent mercy listens to an abundant Voice beyond itself. Hurt does not prevail; instead, it prefers to see the hurt behind the hurt.

How much better it is to sidestep hurt by simply finding the hurt that originated the hurt in the first place. So much anger is motivated by unreconciled hurt below the consciousness. Hence, our compassion feels for that distance of intimacy an angry person has with themselves. How could we be hurt when we know we are not the real source of their anger?

The kindness of persistent mercy—a beautiful part-definition of true compassion—is sown realms above the hurt in humanity. It values the sight and objectivity of the Lord.

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Everyone needs compassion. Obeying God is listening for, nurturing within, and obeying, the Voice of Compassion.

Building the Storehouse of Love

2012-01-25T21:25:00.004+08:00

All through life there are experiences—of varying milieus, magnitudes, and meaning. To each of these belongs a particular response of love: to appease, to accept, to take courage, to belong, to take leave of absence, the lead, etc.

The trouble is we don’t have all these loving responses in play when we need them.

Sometimes they need to be developed from experience; this is when life is likened to hell—when confusion, as to the appropriate response required, reigns.

The Corpus Of Grace

It takes much grace to accept this—that not all our appropriate responses (borne, otherwise, on wisdom) form just-in-time.

Sometimes given situations warrant agony because we’re perplexed to the way through. Enters does anxiety—always for inexplicable reasons. The only helpful answer to such anxiety is the grace to calmly work on the problem—however it’s discerned—and to keep calmly focused on improving things. Sooner or later things improve.

Panic won’t help, nor will getting bogged down in the sort of morbid acceptance that glories in such a trough.

The corpus of grace is all-sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) whether we feel equipped or not. Our weakness is testimony of God’s strength.

Simply knowing that trials find us ill-equipped is confidence that the storehouse of loving responses has need of further fortification. And knowing trials where we feel equipped—in the quietness of serene faith—even when life is far from perfect—is a majestically stoic confidence; we have what we need to endure; a bridge to a better land, we have.

The Storehouse Of Divine Capability

The title of this article could, in some ways, be misleading—our capabilities for stowage are not for ‘loving’ more or better.

They are for Divine access—God is love. To understand life, to cope, and to win, requires access to love—to match our responses with the prevailing situations (again, we call this wisdom).

Love at its perfection utilises such wisdom nonchalantly and to deferent effect.

So, this storehouse of Divine capability is full when we have the set of behavioural responses required to fit the presenting situations. It is a storehouse of love because we’re able to love, or respond appropriately.

It’s okay to feel we’re not there yet. This storehouse in view is unlimited in its capacity, just as the scope of experiences we’re exposed to is unlimited.

All we can hope to do is build our capability. With experience we do.

***

Responding well in life is principally reliant on the mode of love. Building our storehouses of love is about developing appropriate responses and learning from our inappropriate responses, all the while having the grace to accept our present best.

Internet Safety – Scam, Con Alert

2012-01-25T19:18:00.001+08:00

I recall as a child keenly looking through the letterbox in the hope for a letter addressed to me; for some meaningful correspondence that might satisfy my yearning for connection. That same need continues in me today; I’d venture to say most reading this now have that same yearning—to be found special enough to others that they would want to connect.

And this innate motivation, one that’s possibly not identified at the level of our awareness, is one precise detail that scams and confidence tricksters play on.

Ever been promised a spot on the Who’s Who of Whatever? Flattery and compliments-beyond-reason are the key ploy—then, wait for it, comes the request for personal information: an e-mail address, phone number, postal address, etc... Any detail about us that transforms that ‘foot in the door’ (the flattering remark) into the ‘deal’ they really have in mind.

Deceit is the modus operandi and cooling off periods are off the agenda.

Like odds of winning at a casino, this is a game where there is only one winner—it’s not going to be us.

Being Wary Without Losing The Purity Of Our Trust

Whilst there are many in this world who would fleece us quicker than look at us, there are many more we can actually trust. Discerning who to trust, and when, is the key.

Those we can trust don’t need our information—they come with little on the agenda, and they are not manipulative. By this is meant, coercion is not the method used in interaction.

Any sense of coercion or manipulation, by anyone, even by family, should be as an alarm bell to us to watch out; to be alert for the trampling of our needs and the elevating of theirs, usually by stealth.

Those who we can trust end in a way in which they have started—friendliness is couched in complete transparency with no sign of coercion or soliciting of personal details. There is no issue on the agenda. But inevitably, we will need to unreel our trust a bit at a time.

***

Social media provides much more opportunity for scam tricksters to enter our lives. Their methods vary, but watch for unsolicited mail, flattering remarks and offers, unreal deals and, worst of all, sly requests for our personal information. We ought to be suspicious regarding anyone we don’t personally know, especially when they offer something “too good to refuse.”

Capability Is Confidence

2012-01-24T19:59:00.001+08:00

Having done something once, or many times, is enough reason to have faith it can be done again and again.

It bears repeating: having proven ourselves capable we can do this thing, again.

The truth of human experience in many situations, however, is that polarising doubt brings us to our knees in uncharitable fear. Such imaginings get the better of us in every walk of life; the emotive power within is contorted toward paralysis.

These dramatic imaginings, those very ones that occur without thought, dash many of our simplest hopes—even affecting the basic tasks of life: job interviews, operating machines, speaking in public, the ability to travel, to mix in certain social settings etc.

What we are robbed of is the confidence we ought to have in our capability.

Getting Down To Fundamental Mechanics

The science of capability is down to the skill to do a thing a certain way with the reliable portion of consistency—not perfect every time, but generally good enough.

Skill is not a perfect thing. There is margin for error. Forgivable lapses are plentiful in life and no capability is defined by perfection. Yet, we complicate the things we do—those we shrink in doubt for—because our minds have honed in on the sleek shades of darkness within minute parts of these tasks, forgetting most of it is done with ease.

When we have doubts our focus has shifted onto the 1-5% we aren’t sure of.

We too easily forget the fundamental mechanics have already been mastered; it is only the small stuff we sweat over. Yet, logic tells us not to sweat the small stuff; our hearts require further convincing, though. Irrational fear is our evidence.

When we get down to the fundamentals, fixing our minds on the basics, recalling how well we did them, our doubting diminishes.

Resting In Fact

Our capability is our confidence.

Why would we reasonably doubt our ability to do something we have already done? Why would we not now be even more capable, given that we are older, wiser, and more experienced?

Sure, we may lack the practise, but confidence is beyond practise if we can lift ourselves up enough to believe, with positivity, keeping things mechanical, and being mindful as we do it.

***

It is reasonable to doubt our abilities, but where we have proven our capability to do something we should not doubt our ability to do it again. Our capability is our confidence.

The Distances of Intimacy

2012-01-24T01:09:00.002+08:00

Think of the difference between ‘a distance’ and ‘the distance’ and they communicate vastly different concepts. The first describes something potentially far off and the second describes a measurement. The distances of intimacy, similarly, portray relational closeness in different ways.

One fact remains, however: the distances of intimacy are bound to grow if they are not maintained. The distance will become some distance.

And, at some point the relationship reaches breaking point if it’s not tended to. That may or may not be conducive to our goal.

In more broad terms, the distances of intimacy simply enunciate a phenomenon known throughout life: the vanishing points of perspective.

One Perfectly Visible Fact Of Life

Vanishing points in space (the geometry of perspective) and time (the present moment inevitably becoming history) tell us a lot about life in this realm. It keeps moving—its state, nature, purpose, and identity is dynamic. Life implies movement.

Consciousness cannot remain still, though we often wish we could slow it a little.

All energies obey this law whether they are stored statically, as in a charged battery, or the energy relents, like the blowing of leaves by the wind.

As far as relationships are concerned—and in the poignant sense: intimacy—such a truth is graphically known.

The vanishing point theory demonstrates that intimacy either grows to reduce the distance between us or it diminishes and we grow apart—things measured by distance to reduce or increase in distance.

Intimacy will always require nurturing, and if we are serious about our relationships—not just the romantic ones—we will invest whatever it takes to maintain the closeness of rapport.

Likewise, some relationships we’ll allow to peter out; those that don’t matter so much—those that may dilute our vital intimacies too much.

Both Types Of Distance Are To Our Advantage

Reflecting over the relationships of our lives we can measure the distance of the intimacy in each one; they fit into one of three boxes: the intimacy is about right; there is too much intimacy; or, there isn’t enough.

We are the ones designing the distance. We are the ones who are measuring the preferred space between us. We are the ones investing or divesting accordingly.

The distances of intimacy are to our advantage so long as others will allow and we have the ability and mindfulness to reflect and move in the direction we wish to.

***

The distance between us and our partners or work colleagues or siblings or other family members etc is up to us. We can at any time increase or reduce that distance. Importantly, the distances of intimacy always shift naturally apart, like floating islands; they require effort to maintain.

Intimacy is a thing we are rewarded with due the effort we put in. Intimacy and trust cannot grow without sustained commitment, as seen via the mode of action.

Hope When You’re Broke

2012-01-23T19:57:00.003+08:00

Few life circumstances cripple our hope more than the capitulation of our finances; the loss of good paying work, uncertainty, reliance on piecework, and much debt. All these and more will get us down, and down we might stay, except for a vibrant hope that sits somewhere amongst the truth.

And that’s where the key difference lies between hopelessness and hope: the truth that fuels genuine belief.

So, how do we find hope within the available truth that amounts to our financial lives?

Servicing The Practical Need

Purpose-driven parents have one aim when their families are materially destitute: to feed, clothe, and educate their children; to indwell within them reason for hope. Despair will not define them.

Life becomes simple in circumstances of sheer need. It’s unfortunate that simplicity is normally a good thing. Yet, in these circumstances we’d like to afford a little more than frank simplicity; still, we’ll take it—there are those worse off!

Servicing the practical need is done on a day-by-day basis; and, though such a living situation increases our faith we would prefer any other challenge, besides the loss of health or, worse, loved ones.

Recalling The Blessedness Of Tight Circumstances

One thing the materially well-off don’t have is the blessedness of tight circumstances—the appreciation of simple things because everything of material worth is scarce.

Scarcity is an eternal value that speaks into our hearts. When things are no longer scarce all of life becomes comfortable and, ironically, our happiness ebbs away.

Though times might be tight, very few people, if any, certainly in the Western world, have starved to death; unlike those plagued by famine in East Africa.

Hopefulness is generally borne on a low tide where life might only be seen for the improving. When situations are truly dire, the spirit within, if it can smile, is somehow fortified and made stronger. Hope in the midst of hopelessness is actually more prevalent than it is when we have nothing to want for. And there, too, is God.

When life gets tough we discover who our friends are; the family members with love in our hearts come, where they can, to see if they can help—not to rescue, for our dignity is important to them.

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Having hope when we’re broke is the incredible testimony of faith; to understand the complexity of dire straits, yet still do whatever can be done to make the best of life without. Believing we will not only get through but also grow is faith enough to get through today—and today is all anyone has.

Doing and Achieving Things Together

2012-01-22T18:11:00.001+08:00

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.”

~Ecclesiastes 4:9 (NRSV)

Helping my father with my parents’ lawns each fortnight is one way of staying connected as well as ensuring important maintenance work is done—and completed in a way that is easier in accomplishment together than alone. Without a word said, we spur each other quietly on.

It’s noticed, also, when it comes to working out—gym activities are always more fun when done with a partner.

Doing and achieving things together has an important practical component—that the work gets done—and it’s also a way that intimacy can be procured and enhanced in a healthily distractive setting.

Teamwork And Loneliness

For all the downsides in doing things together—like having to compromise on methods and rein in selfishness—it is by far more preferable than struggling, alone, at tasks that either require two people or would be more fun done that way.

Loneliness is just as much about a lack of felt intimacy—with other people or with ourselves—as it is anything else. It’s a state of heart that defies the moment’s reconciliation to be at peace. No one relishes it.

This is why cherishing time to do things together is about enjoying the fellowship as much as it is doing the task itself. We all have memories of group-times that, for the life of us, we would love to replicate, but can’t—truly great times that can never quite be totally recaptured in the present day.

So, the activity completed is one thing, but the time together—whether a twosome or a whole group—is entirely another thing; the task is material and the fellowship is spiritual. One we can almost put a price on; the other we can’t.

Things Done Together – Double The Purpose And Meaning

Whenever we do things together we urge each other on—if not vocally, then it’s by recognition of the witness of the other person: we see them work and it inspires us to follow their lead and vice versa.

Things done together unveil the blessings of community; even the twosome. The promise of Jesus’ presence—“where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there also”—becomes, at some sense, the visible reality for those involved (Matthew 18:20). What they do, they do for goodness and grace—it brings out our individual best.

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Achieving things as an individual might always be inferior to achieving things together. The help of a friend or our help to them is the operant kindness of God when done willingly. It is perhaps the simplest of blessings.

A Friend – Born For Adversity

2012-01-21T15:32:00.004+08:00

“A friend loves at all times,

and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.”

~Proverbs 17:17 (NRSV)

True loneliness may be a fact of genuine adversity without a listening ear to beat our lament against; still, the Lord defies all manner of loneliness by his rich Presence. That Divine Ear is piqued at a moment’s heartfelt prayer. Heaven knows we need it.

But, then there are friends—kinsfolk and those chosen, by personality and other situational matches, for the role destined to give loving support.

Where would we be without them?

As If God In Skin

Whether those we come to rely upon in times of dire need are blood-kin or not is irrelevant in the context of this proverb. The reality is, God may even select the circumstances for the acquainting of otherwise strangers who come into our midst, and we into theirs, and this is only remarked on later, as a matter of wonder.

The role of that brother or sister-in-arms is tantamount to the faithfulness that is only known to the Lord of creation—the Remitter of life itself.

Such faithfulness bestows to us reams and banquets of unexpected favour when we most need it; desperation, the language we cried from our inner being—not knowing at all what was really required and what help might sort us out. But our friend—the exemplar of God in skin—came there to be both confidant and practical facilitator of momentary healing. And then they were even more.

Yes, God made himself known through them. They caused us to believe, afresh, that goodness and hope belong, deeply enshrined to a world that shows scant regard.

Faith, therefore, transformed our view of life; we had new bearing for faith and the love we received compelled us to look to confer it on another.

Friendship Motivates Friendship Because Of Love

Love wins. It may be a popular term, and in this context it is never truer. The love implicit within the bond of friendship teaches us the practice of a worthy love. As a flow on, it inspires and motivates the action of love that might even look for opportunities of hardship so as to be gifted passage into the role.

Such a love does not go AWOL at a time of heightened need; it rises to the occasion and senses destiny unfolding; it goes long into the night and doesn’t quit.

Such a love redefines relationships, personal outlooks, and life itself as it subsists for those affected. A great and laudable ambassador for God is the friend in times of need.

***

Friendship can shatter the evils of loneliness and break holds constructed in our own minds; it warms the heart; and, it gives witness to faith—that love can redeem impossibility out of the jaws of death.

Friendship: the gift of grace.

Not Expecting Too Much From People

2012-01-20T19:50:00.004+08:00

The Teacher, Qoheleth, having discerned the riddles of life, says:

“See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.”

~Ecclesiastes 7:29 (NRSV)

What comes as no surprise to a penitent Christian is an awful affront to many others; we are sinful, fallible human beings. If the Apostle Paul could not rein in his sinfulness we don’t stand much of a chance. This is not even about Christian doctrine; it’s a fact of life—we make mistakes, upset people, have bad days, and generally make a hash of life in so many ways.

We see this when we’re honest. And if we can see the reality about ourselves—that we “devise schemes” despite our “straightforward” design—we won’t withhold our forgiveness of others just as emotionally distraught and spiritually infirmed.

Grace Is Not Too Academic

As we consider the foregoing, knowing full well that we try to be good but often aren’t, we recognise our own needs for forgiveness. It isn’t such a colossal leap, then, to begin to see others’ needs, similarly.

We transgress others as they will transgress us.

If forgiveness was to be withheld from us we could see how difficult it might be for us to forgive; it may be hard to give grace when we have been forgiven precious little, but as we venture forward our forgiveness it boomerangs back—eventually. We feel better in forgiving in any event.

The grace of forgiveness is not difficult to understand. We all need it; from God, sure, but we also need it from our fellow human beings who we wrong in an instant.

So, when they wrong us—despite our hurt—we need to understand, even logically, they need a way back just as much as we need it when we’ve done wrong.

The Secret To Happiness In A Human World

The subtitle might be a bold promise, but it’s substantially true when we connect the concept of happiness within the realm of humanity and not expecting too much; even being surprised regarding the good in people.

We are happiest in our human world when we pleasantly accept the fallibility of the people around us because we are continuously reminded of our own fallibility. We understand none of us can help it, though we try hard; sometimes too hard.

With low expectations of them as persons we ensure we give people plenty of space to fail and, therefore, to feel they belong.

People are trying their best to travel the journey of life—other people and circumstances are great complications to that end. Life is hard enough without imposing high standards over people.

Putting Something Aside For A Rainy Day

2012-01-19T20:25:00.002+08:00

What is generally thought to be a financial concept—to save for a rainy day—when finances may not flow so seamlessly as they do now—is just as much a spiritual concept; one for the protection of the emotions.

So many of us have learned the hard way; a desolate sense of grief ill-prepared for. It accosted us and we had no choice but to reconcile in numbness a life that was ending.

How much better to know a grief-quickening circumstance could prevail any time; to be prepared, not morbidly, but wisely, for an impending dry time where the spirit is chastened and glee fizzles away.

Immersed In Suffering

Such a fundamental blessing is afforded the person who, for volition of the heartiest service, takes it upon themselves to go find a place of suffering in order to redeem someone else’s reality check. A suffering not their own connects them with both a suffering that’s personally possible, which is cherished information to endorse humble expectation, and a suffering that can be alleviated through kindness and compassion.

And even if we haven’t, or cannot see ourselves, engaged in such practical service—and that is quite okay—then we are most blessed to visit suffering frequently within our minds; this way the heart practises redeeming strength from the only help we have: God. Reason and rationale for God-reliance is hence reinforced.

Given the choice, however, many people will not do this; they will prefer to have their tidy, happy lives, uninterrupted by thought for pain; how ill-prepared they might be.

It is one reason that the gospel message has eternal vibrancy. Jesus connected not with the joyous, but more so with the dire and desperate.

Journeying In Wisdom

Practices of wisdom are known to steer a person in their discernment and faith toward locations of relative spiritual safety. At such locations there might be less self-inflicted pain.

By putting something aside for a rainy day—a gloom unpredicted—and many possibilities to that end exist—we take life at truth; that it could turn any time. Such foresight will be known as wisdom, to ameliorate within the mind and heart the product of such times.

Wisdom has it. It is the most glorious possession, because it is owned by God—the possessor and that which is possessed. Wisdom is the best Divine protection available.

***

We may prepare for life financially, but do we prepare spiritually—for the life-turning event that shatters our equilibrium? Far wiser it is to employ thought for what might be, and how life might change for struggle. It will help us cope if and when it occurs.

Graphic Credit: State Library of NSW: Pitt St, Sydney.

Respect’s Rich Return on Investment

2012-01-18T17:17:00.002+08:00

Barbara has two teenage daughters and, like most parents, finds her role challenging though rewarding; recently she reflected that too often she causes her girls to feel guilty for the many thing she does for them. Then she resolved to do things without thought for thanks. She was later pleasantly surprised to receive an unsolicited note of thanks and apology in return for something she did.

Not all investments pay dividends. But most made in relational settings do—that is what must motivate our faith to love others who have no vibrant history of returning such love.

The sort of love we discuss here really is better termed, respect; perhaps the respect beyond that which is deserved. Therefore, such respect uncovers grace—the extension, to someone, for something of undeserved favour, love loaned freely, for unmerited reason, couched in no form of repayment.

In Parenting

This is critical in parenting when children and teens can be expected to be somewhat narcissistic (and aren’t we all a little narcissistic?).

In this setting it’s perhaps never harder to give way to thoughts for respect over authority and to risk for love. The risk is we might be walked over—it’s true.

All investments have some element of risk attached to them—just look at the money market. After all, we are trusting our judgment and discernment. There are no guarantees.

Good parenting requires trust; the capacity to trust and trust some more, even sometimes after that trust has been dashed. Venturing forward the respect we would normally show an adult we can expect some level of return by love, but the key is not to. Grace has no expectation, but we do know that good works of love—remitting practical respect—will eventually be rewarded.

At Work

Real leadership is known for its situational discernment; to issue the respect-of-grace whenever it’s afforded—either because the love-of-respect may be returned, or because we can afford to drop our guard to risk, appropriately, for cordial intimacy.

Giving grace without thought to what we might lose dissolves suspicious mistrust and it forces people to reassess us—“Have I got him/her sorted in my own mind?”

None of us likes to be pigeonholed unless it’s positive; being at peace with grace is ensuring we keep people guessing regarding any negative attributions they might have about us.

A Covenant, Everywhere

These things are difficult to achieve because they don’t come naturally. How else are we to do them than via prayer?

We start, continue, and end our days praying and we furnish our world, more and more, with grace. It’s only unlikely to take place if we limit ourselves in it. The best of prayer is the covenant of belief everywhere; a divinely-poised optimism. We can do this.

***

Respecting others when we know it may not be returned is an investment in grace: a co-operative venture with God. Gospel truth suggests our respect-of-love dispatched stands to return to us, in joyous ways, the love-of-respect. Faith fuels such investment.

Better Than Me...

2012-01-17T06:25:00.004+08:00

Reality checks are a necessary commodity in life, especially when our mood gives way to instances of narcissistic self-pity. In the midst of a darker life that the many experience every day, it helps us to remember how actually good we have it.

Better than me:

þ Is the young soldier who toured Afghanistan to serve his country, which is enough of a sacrifice without knowledge of the fact of the disabling injury that ended his tour and life as he once knew it. He thought nothing of the common pleasures available for a man his age and gave them up so decent civilisation might be defended. Ongoing bodily pain is shrift relief, and a humbling reminder, for contemplation that peers had it worse and died on a foreign desert. He battles through his disability and finds ways to help and inspire others.

þ Is the 10-year-old girl bullied ceaselessly at school, one who is painfully shy and awkwardly conscious of the road ahead; there is no support within her family structure; indeed, there is much abuse in that home; her courage is poignant in trudging onward despite the aggression she will face today. She has fought the temptation to self-harm. She will continue to. Life is an immense grind but, soon, some day, the meaning to life will be revealed—she will reach out and find saving faith in Jesus.

þ Is the woman, who, five years ago, was beaten, physically and sexually, but still wakes with hope for healing, almost every single morning. There are mornings when she can’t get out of bed, but there are no ultimate give-ins; no prolonged thought for pity beyond shadowy hope. She has learned to pray. God has become real for her—no matter what other people say. Faith has made a difference. And though she carries the marks of her injuries within her, she insists upon believing this week is better than the last.

***

All of these people above have, and had, significantly more reason to complain or give up considering the vast tumults that life has meted out to them, than I, though I do not begrudge them the sanctity of suffering having experienced divorce beyond choice myself.

God fills me with awe at the courage of the multitudes of unfortunate ones whom battle, in so many ways, for a normal life because of what has occurred; things often so desperately final.

Resilience is a life choice, but it needs to be inspired. Let our inspiration be cast, then, upon the stories of everyday heroes and heroines who battled calamitous adversities and show us, today, getting through the depths of hell to a better life is achievable for anyone.

Why We Trust Liars and How Not To

2012-01-16T20:20:00.002+08:00

First, it needs to be said: we don’t trust all people or, for that matter, all people we know that are known to lie. But there are times when we want to believe them, or need to, and so then we do. It may not always end well.

Trusting someone who may be lying:

1. Is often easier and less confrontational when we don’t have the energy or time for conflict. We need to bear in mind, though, that we are most vulnerable when we lack energy and time. Sometimes it’s better to defer trust for calm reflection.

2. May protect us, ourselves, as we pretend that decisions made to go forward with a particular person years ago were not as bad as they are. The truth is we are kidding no one. An alliance with someone known for their dishonesty will hurt us eventually. It is better for us to call them on it and be bold enough to reconsider our position.

3. Is easier when there are no direct or indirect consequences for taking the cowardly avenue; pleasant denial of the facts elicits trust. It says, “What you are doing—however wrong it may be—is okay.” This is not a good direction to head for. It is best to turn around and be straight.

4. Might be about forgetting the sting in the tail of betrayal in opening ourselves to trust someone unworthy of such grace. We are better advised to keep our memories on a short leash, without being limited for vision of people demonstrating integrity.

5. Is explained because we can’t harm a fly and we like to think others can’t or won’t either. We could call it naivety, but it is just as much a pure nature that is taken advantage of. Sometimes it’s best to rely, regarding important decisions, on a trusted wise adviser; someone objective and with a heart for our advocacy.

6. Could be about deciding to be as ‘cool’ as they are, because in some situations it is considered just, funny, or appropriate to lie. We ought to be warned, however; we join forces in covenants of bluff knowing fully well it’s wrong. Folly is the trust that ignores the consequences, found by hindsight, in blatant view. It will not end well.

7. Could be our only choice if we suspect something might be wrong but cannot prove it. Many significant decisions might be considered in such circumstances, but again it is better to delay if at all possible. Gut feelings should be trusted.

***

Lying destroys relationships and leaves people hurt every day. Nobody wants to be betrayed and our lives move better when we trust people. Wisdom commends us to trust wisely and, when we do, without condition. There is, however, no obligation to trust dishonest people.

Enduring A Partner’s Habits Gracefully

2012-01-15T20:05:00.002+08:00

Coffee is one of my last sensual loves of the physical taste variety, yet my wife loathes the smell of it—whether it’s in the house or on my breath. Such a habit, however, hasn’t caused any marital sticking points yet, though there are many habits that rock households in exasperation. (What is clearly not the scope of this article are habits of addiction.)

We all have our nagging deficiencies; those habits or faults about us only our partners would faithfully endure. And that is the lot of the partner—to find a way to bridge the gap between annoyance and acceptance.

What can help is growing our understanding of three things:

1) Knowing and unconditionally accepting our partner;

2) Appreciating and accepting ourselves (and changing if we can); and,

3) Appreciating the unique relationship dynamic shared between the two.

Understanding Two Individuals And One Relationship Dynamic

Isn’t it peculiar how God puts us with people, in our family contexts and at work, that prove irritating by the things they do or the way they do them? Could it be these challenges are object lessons in the waiting?

When someone is given to chewing loudly and we may be challenged for tolerance not to criticise, the opportunity is to grow in grace—beginning one moment at a time. I have found this a personal challenge even though, I, myself, have been known to be noisy eater! (Go figure.)

What may seem as easy challenges to overcome for others could be never harder for us; we are the way we are and the opportunity is to accept it without giving way to it.

Just the same, our partners have their own eccentricities to deal with, notwithstanding ours. So, it’s a four-way tolerance that is needed within one relationship dynamic: a portion of tolerance each for their own, as well as tolerance for the partner’s beneficence.

Tolerance is such a need in all relationships and, though it is simple in theory, it is actually quite hard to practice when we consider the way we naturally think is, to a large extent, set. We may not be able to change the way we think (or maybe to some degree we can) but we can resist acting in intolerant ways.

***

Notwithstanding habits of addiction, all partners in relationships have their quirks. So long as the habit is not problematic, it is each partner’s concern to exercise tolerance regarding those quirks. The goal is to move from annoyance and reach acceptance.

Honouring Each Family Member’s Identity

2012-01-14T15:51:00.004+08:00

My all-time favourite animated classic is Meet the Robinsons (2007). One of the salubrious features of this all-ages belter is the underlying message, besides to keep moving forward: the intrinsic and unique value of each family member.

In the movie, the Robinson household is very kooky to say the least; it’s large and each of the eighteen members (family and non-family) of the family unit has a particular eccentricity. And they are all so different from one another.

Notwithstanding the exaggerations of theatre, our families—to each member—are just as matchless so far as the uniqueness of identity is concerned.

Difference defines family.

Resisting Temptations To ‘Stamp’ Identity

Families throughout history have been plagued by a phenomenon, generally wrought by a parent or both parents or a guardian, known as stamping an extrinsic identity on the family, on its members, or on a member. This is often seen as a parent living through the child; the child then bears the seal of a vision conceptualised by a parent, often long ago; one not the child’s own.

This is dangerous territory. When parents usurp the innate locale of their children, dissuading them from following another path, they potentially undermine and confuse their distinctive spirits.

It’s even worse when children, generally speaking, go out of their way to meet with the approval of their parents—they might readily comply with the desires of a parent against the flow of their inner urge and, therefore, deny their identity.

The discerning parent, one who is reconciled to their pasts, to the unmet goals of a bygone era, will push past any temptation to coerce into their children their goals—projections of their unreconciled desires. They will allow identity to form as it should form—in a seminary of support, gentle guidance, and encouragement.

A Good Goal – To Embrace And Solve A Mystery

As families, and their individual members, grow up and into identities all their own—to their individual satisfaction and group celebration—there is the need of a goal common to each person: to embrace and solve, each in their own time, the mystery of identity as it is found wound deeply into the heart of each one.

This is no easy task and it requires an earnest search; one that, when undertaken, does eventually prove successful—even if that means identity is finally shored up in adulthood. There are many late bloomers.

Importantly, identity seems to be not so much fixed, but mouldable throughout life as identity morphs with our situational environments and the choices available to us over our life spans. There is freedom to change.

One skill we will want for our children is the ability to resolve the mysteries of life regarding identity as they occur again and again. There is less anxiety and depression as a result. Life requires this sort of resilience for adaptation.

***

There may be no better gift a family, and each of its members, can be given than the freedom to develop identity without coercion. Honouring the formation of identity is the greatest parental task; it’s a key responsibility and a joy to behold as it is unveiled.

Affection’s Mysterious Blossoming Nature

2012-01-13T20:54:00.002+08:00

Considering my affection for three objects shows it to most easily blossom.

The Affection For One’s Children

The affection I have for my three daughters is deep and so hard to adequately describe, yet I shall try. At my lowest ebb they were the ones who pulled me through, though they may have been the last ones to know at the time. For a significant period of my life they were the reason I continued to live.

But affection doesn’t begin there. Affection begins with the desire to want to spend time, and to engage in their lives, to discern their troubles, worries, and frustrations—to help without rescuing. To watch them grow, to take on the world and win, is quietly satisfying; especially as I reflect over the younger years.

Just to be positioned in a way to help, and not to hinder, has affection for our children poised for growth. When we are able to give of ourselves in order to support our children, our affection for them blossoms.

The Affection For A Spouse

The affection I have for my wife is different, naturally. We might I start? Being a sensual person, who is engaged strongly in what I see, hear, taste, touch and smell, my affection is sated, initially, in her physical presence—but there is never enough of her! (This is a thoroughly good thing.)

But my blossoming affections are characterised far beyond simply the physical.

A spiritual affection pervades, at times, when there are physical signs of arousal, yet there is zero eroticism. God has engaged with both of us, here, to engorge spiritual blessing that is impossible to describe or understand. It is golden splendour.

The Affection For One’s God

The affection I have for God, without sounding proud about it, is more mysteriously wistful than anything, perhaps because my relationship with God is so much central to the relationship I have with myself.

Being affectionate with God is, therefore, allowing ourselves to be self-affectionate.

Given the process of the years, and the knowledge within of God’s faithfulness, our affection for the Lord is built sturdily, one brick at a time. Such an affection will continue to grow, unlike the other two, into Glory.

***

Ponder for a moment your own affections.

Tap into them; plumb the blessing that is enfolded through such a loving device.

Like generosity, affection sown is a thing that gives back, teeming with delightful gifts of unexpected blessing.

***

Affection is the mysterious emotion enamoured of a love that is swept high on a tidal wave of joy with no sight for the land of despair. The more we focus on the objects of our affection the more our affection grows—even to joy overflowing. Affections ventured are affections copiously gained.

Blessed Are The Opportunists

2012-01-12T23:03:00.002+08:00

There is an underpinning value accorded to life.

When all detail, distractions, and deliberations are stripped away what we are left with is opportunity. The golden state of living and breathing commends most of all that we are playing our humble part in God’s grand creative plan.

By pure reality there is nothing more basic than the ability to act. We have choice, and therefore control, over what we do.

Making Our Contribution

Making a contribution means adding value at every step; it takes delight in doing so.

What a thought it is that we, of our single selves, one whole life that is our own, can sow back into life in the world—and, thus, life eternal!

That opportunity abounds, today, is a masterpiece concept of everyday living proportion only presented, here, at the cusp of time.

It stands there to be captive for us and it blesses the ingenuity of effort—whether ours or others’.

And we applaud it in others’ lives, also—that they took, and won, such divine beneficence; as we reject, at hand, the climbing claims of envy seeking to stamp all opportunity as its own! And envy has no claim on us when we refuse to enter into comparison over who is making what contribution. Any good contribution is applauded.

Big Or Small – It Does Not Matter

This is a bone-crunching, liberating truth if ever there was one. There is no better contribution than the one we make; the one we are called to offer at the altar of our human existence before God.

As soon as we understand this mighty axiom—that size of contribution doesn’t matter—we are freed to gleefully put forth whatever we can; whatever we are resourced to give; however it comes; for every instinctively loving motive.

Upon even the smallest, most unacknowledged act we are blessed if only we have taken the opportunity.

Managing Envy

It’s a truth that all of us must grapple with: comparisons are made with others over the size, type, ingenuity, reception, and weight, of contribution.

Managing envy is, of itself, an opportunity.

Our best step is, on the front foot, to pursue evidence of others’ action and commend it without thought for what is lacking within us. Do this, seeing how it blesses others, and we will do it more.

***

The grandest possible vision for life is the identification of opportunity and the opportunism of making a contribution. That is humility, diligence, empathy, courage, and prudence, all wrapped in one—to simply contribute. Size does not matter.

Feelings – Good Enough To Own!

2012-01-11T19:37:00.004+08:00

Whilst we see plenty of evidence of both visible and veiled anger in our day-to-day world (think of any and all of the conflict you’re aware of), the blessedness of feelings owned and taken responsibility for is a comparatively rare sight.

There is clear blessing, though, for those who buck the trend.

Rather than blaming our partners, our work colleagues, our brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers or sons or daughters, we ought to stop ourselves in the midst of temptation to that anger, and ask: What is going on within me?

The clearest blessing in such a reflection is the conflict is averted; and embarrassment; and the necessity of an apology, later. That is not to elaborate on the grief we save others and ourselves.

Searching within ourselves—or allowing God the tenure of Lordship this way—is consummate assertiveness; it looks after the needs of others and ourselves.

Resisting Blameworthy Attitudes And Behaviour

It is a fact of life that we judge. Whether we like it or not we fly off in judgment without thought, and when we act on such judgment, again without thought, we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble.

Something has to interrupt our judgment.

Resisting blameworthy attitudes and behaviour—the manifestation of judgment—is as simple as looking, within the emotional incident, for evidence of out-of-control, judgmental feelings and owning them by taking responsibility for them.

Such an act may be simple, but what we might find hard is the pain of feeling our feelings. Many, many people—to most of the world—are afraid of their feelings. It is not the world’s way to be brutally honest regarding raw emotion.

Again, we need to buck the trend.

For our own good, and that of others, we can make the commitment of resisting blameworthy, judgmental attitudes and behaviours, substituting the negative thought space for an instant of reflection: What is going on within me?

The pain of those feelings honestly acknowledged is a mere itch compared with the wallop of denied feelings that spew over in an unguarded moment.

Taking Responsibility For Ourselves

What seems refreshingly adult is the ability of response we have in managing our feelings. What seems so basic is actually quite an advanced portion of emotional intelligence, as well as being fundamental to God-obedience—by being fair and just.

This is what we grew up for; to take responsibility for ourselves (and not for others).

***

It is easy to blame our partner or other people for things that upset us; it’s too easy, perhaps. When we act in faith to own our feelings everything becomes better.

Our feelings set us apart as uniquely us. When we welcome them we become more intimate even with ourselves. And God’s blessing of peace abides.

Licensed For Life

2012-01-10T22:33:00.002+08:00

“There is only one success,... to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.”

~Christopher Morley, 1922

I wrote recently on the subject of overcoming passive aggressive behaviour and this is, perhaps, a sequel to that.

It seems passive aggressive behaviour has another name; from the relational perspective it is co-dependency; one in the relationship may have their problems—in this case, passive aggression—and the more emotionally-able partner finds themselves betwixt between enabling the passive aggressive behaviour and withdrawing totally, even perhaps becoming passive aggressive themselves to counteract dire negativity.

The quintessential passive aggressive person routinely responds negatively, but instead of reacting angrily their anger simmers just below the surface; their behaviour is manifest in stubbornness, face pulling, veiled sarcasm, manipulation etc. They, by their personality, are unplayable.

Notwithstanding the fact that we all feature for this type of behaviour every now and again, this type of partner is characterised as the consummate deflector; at the extreme, they stake an “absurd maddening claim” on the lives of their loved ones, peers, and associates.

Negotiating Through A Minefield

If we would be married to someone like this, or we have a business partner this way inclined, or we work with a PA (and we all do), we might be quickly discouraged. We recognise that someone has staked “a claim” on our lives—the only true possession God has given us.

But, recognition is a great response to the revelation: rather than be blown away by the bomb-laden ground all around us, such knowledge ensures our ears and eyes are piqued in order that we might grow in wisdom. God has blessed us with this learning ground. It is not a curse because God has intended it for our growth.

We need to be sure we don’t set up situations where we enable negative behaviour by either playing the victim or aggressor ourselves.

Down-the-line assertive behaviour is our mandate; we are to look out for their true needs as well as ours; we are to be advocates of true fairness and appropriate justice. This can be difficult as objectivity is not a universal gift prevailing itself over all our circumstances. We are destined to get it wrong. We do need, though, to pray for objectivity.

Making Enough Room For Ourselves

The truth, overall, is we are the ones responsible for our own happiness. We cannot use others’ behaviour as an excuse for our own misery; that is, of itself, verging on passive aggressive thinking—and we know where that is leading!

Making enough room for ourselves is taking full responsibility for the whole of our lives; it’s taking every bit of the control God has blessed us to take. The only control we don’t take is the cherished part of surrender that sets us apart as faithful to the Lord.

***

When we realise that God has licensed us for life we waste no time on excuses; fully prepared with such a sound premise, we live each day prepared and ready to live the abundant life. No one controls us but God.

The Great Life Secret of Smallness

2012-01-09T21:15:00.003+08:00

Many people may say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” but those who say it possibly don’t imagine the power of such a statement when considering all of life (in comparative terms) is small stuff.

“In comparative terms,” it needs to be said, is the big disclaimer.

The individual’s right to worry, stress, grieve, and otherwise get emotional, is something that is sanctified between them and God alone. Or else, nothing is so big in comparative terms that it cannot be handled; yet, there are losses we experience that will overwhelm us. We can see the bigness and smallness of the problematic life hung in tension. Both apply, yet we can still see all of life is, comparatively, small stuff.

The Universe And The Power Of Smallness

Our universe is an example to us of the scale of things in this realm of reality. Fifty billion known galaxies and, still, we only get a sniff of the real issues when we get close enough.

Someone observing us from as close as the moon would have no idea about life on earth; but, in terms of the size of the universe they could hardly be closer.

We can well imagine others’ lives as viewed by us this way—the machinery of each person’s being is so complex. Yet, on the universal scale all is so still cosmically quiet.

Given the size of the universe, and the relative minuteness of our lives, all our problems pale into insignificance; even the huge ones. Yet, such is life that even small things (on the universal scale) have unique power—one single event has the capacity to upend our lives.

The size of big things and the intricate detail of small things—both are big, but the small thing is so small in comparison. Our problems in contrast with the larger universe are truly minuscule.

Standing Back To Look At The View On The Canvas

Artists will stand back for reflective moments in order to assess the development of their work.

The bigger things get, the further away we become, the more harmony is visible. The further we get past our peculiar quirks, anxieties, and concerns, in order to see, the more vision-of-reality on the universal scale we will perceive. We will begin to see things as they are—and how others see them—when we step back far enough.

The Paradoxical Need To Experience Grief

Held in constant tension with the above is every human being’s inherent need and irrefutable capacity to grieve losses, experience losing, and endure change; the process of adjusting.

If there was possibly an even more important life skill and practice than not sweating the small stuff it is skilfully grieving any and all losses; the art of majestically letting go. That done, we set about living lightly.

***

There is a necessary need in life to grieve our losses. That accepted, we can approach the opposite reality: no problem in life is universally big. Not sweating the small stuff is a great life secret that appreciates the truth about smallness. When we live big lives, spiritually, the small stuff doesn’t overwhelm us so much.

The Passion Of Long-Distance Love

2012-01-08T11:54:00.003+08:00

“Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.”

~Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It has long been said that if ever there was a test for love it was distance. Those young couples, a generation or three back, might separate for a time in lieu of confirmation of feelings for each other to see what time and distance would do in relation to such a bond. Such an action is not so popular these days; apart from those in military service, the rest of the world appears in too much of a hurry.

Quickly, upon distance, the truth prevails: what do we really think and how do we really feel? It is the prayer that both partners feel the same way—drawn together whilst happily apart—for but a time—their flame flourishing. This is not always the case, however. So many struggle arduously!

Surviving The Tyranny Of Distance

There are many in this world whom have occupations far flung from the family; it may not be everybody’s first choice, but some people must lead this lifestyle for various reasons.

When absence clearly makes life harder because we miss our partners or families or good friend, we can know it as God’s confirmation that our love is the real deal—that is cold comfort for some, yet it’s a fact, anyway.

Making the most of the time—yes, each and every moment—is the way to survive such tyranny of distance and time away from loved ones. It’s about focus; keeping an eye and all our senses on the world before us, yet allowing pleasant dreams to filter through the consciousness as they will. Both can and will coexist.

Long-distance relationships do tend to polarise us toward the rollercoaster ride experience; like looking forward to Christmas, and times away with family, we know that high times precede low times—when the reality of real, sombre life happens to us, again, when we’re apart.

It is wise to have something in every compartment of life, especially away, that draws our heart; that involves us at joy; that gives us something to look forward to.

Confirmations Of Our True Emotions

God provides distances for each person party to a relationship to reflect; to learn more about themselves, the reality of their own feelings, in the context of relations with another person or people and the dynamics known to love. Distance fires the imagination.

Though distance can be seen as a terrible thing for relationships, it is also a tool of confirmation and, therefore, confidence. The decisive soul is one counselled by wisdom and, where there is dual-and-reciprocal-commitment, the relationship prospers greatly.

***

Whether home or away, close together or apart, the bond of love is ever strengthened or it withers from recognition. Though it’s hard, distance is a good test for love where passion fans the flame of commitment.

Overcoming Passive Aggressive Behaviour

2012-01-07T23:55:00.004+08:00

Ever had someone quip you with a circuitous insult (delivered by a smiling assassin) or criticise you via a note when you had no chance to respond in a timely way? Or, perhaps, there was a time you wished you could have had more influence over the procrastinator in your midst; they happened to be more elusive than you could imagine.

It’s more common than any of us think, yet more frustrating than any of us really can bear; still, because we can’t put our finger on it, those engaging in passive aggressive behaviour get away with it.

This behaviour is a complex one, manifesting itself in a vast number of ways, depending on the circumstances, and the practitioner! Essentially it’s because the passive aggressive has not dealt with, and does not deal with, their anger.

But, before we look at anger, let’s look at the aggression-factor that resides behind those who exhibit as passive aggressive in nature.

Four Descriptions Of Aggression

As we delve deeper into the nature of what can be termed a personality disorder, it helps to explore the topic of aggression, as well as understanding the role of aggression as apparent via passivity.

According to Human Synergistics International, there are four archetypes of aggressive/defensive behaviour: perfectionistic; competitive; power; and, oppositional.

In other words, behaviour known as aggressive is demanding, out to win at all costs, always about power, and generally oppositional regarding others’ wants and needs.

Ordinarily, aggressive behaviour is easy to spot; not with this form, however, because there is an insidious modus operandi taking place, even many levels below the consciousness of the passive aggressive person.

The Complexities Of Passive aggressive Behaviour

What confounds the easy detection of such silent aggression is it’s veiled in somewhat passive and covert, almost harmless, behaviour. The victims of such behaviour may wonder even if there is any reason to complain; they are home to second-guessing and doubts present because their sense of torment cannot easily be backed up in observable acts. They may feel powerless and even prone to insanity for dealing with such a person.

Attacks are always indirect and never usually openly abusive. In these ways such behaviour is unlikely to be ‘caught’ and offenders are likely to have grown skilful in their ways, having ‘practiced’ over decades. These are the ones who cry ‘offended’ when generally that shoe is on the other foot.

Unresolved Anger Bites

What’s behind this condition is, of course, unresolved anger; perhaps that which has been borne from an unreconciled childhood. Maybe the passive aggressive approach to life was found to preferable or even a necessity—part of a survival instinct to cope with the dynamics within the family of origin.

Such visceral, yet invisible, and even unkempt, anger has been founded upon a seedbed bereft of love—again, somehow, springing from childhood.

The sad thing is the last person likely to admit their weakness is the passive aggressive person. Like nearly all of us, they might need to be faced with a crisis before they will act.

When We Are The Victim

Assuming the reader is reading because they are dealing with someone known for their passive aggressive behaviour, we can suggest the following:

The only thing that works in controlling aggressive behaviour effectively—whether overt or covert—is assertiveness: the discipline to behave in ways that looks after both parties’ needs, simultaneously. It’s the win/win approach.

We cannot be the doormat, yet we need to be careful how we protect our own rights.

To a point, there are many behaviours in others we need to simply accept; so long as they are not abusive or neglectful.

***

Overcoming passive aggressive behaviour in someone close to us, in the home or at work or elsewhere, is first about understanding the ‘cool’, yet unresolved, anger driving such behaviour. Then, it’s about learning assertiveness in the practical tasks of interaction. Passive aggressive people must not be allowed free rein. Making a study of assertiveness is our way to restoring a semblance of control.

The best thing about the present discussion is ensuring we do our own internal work, to resolve our anger, continually, so that we are not characterised as passive aggressive.

Letters To The Departed

2012-01-07T20:04:00.003+08:00

“Ancient writings may have been created to communicate with others in the area and perhaps even to communicate with future generations. But they always originated with a longing to connect. That longing is never stronger than when a deep connection has been broken.”

~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

Of all the coping mechanisms that may be used in externalising the tremendously powerful emotions comprising the soul in grief, perhaps letter writing is most poignant in its manner of expression.

As is captured in the above quote, there is an eternal connectiveness known to life that may be somewhat re-established in writing out our thoughts and feelings. Writing helps with our grief. It may also help us ‘commune’ with a person long gone, by our memory of how they might have listened to us and advised us.

Written Expressions Of Grief

As a personal memoir, I recall writing to a significant old flame regarding my emotions for her and how sickly in love I still was. Given that the end of the relationship was initiated by her, others felt that such letter writing may have given her some sort of correspondingly sick satisfaction.

I didn’t stop. I knew that this practice was ever cathartic for me, despite any negative power I was giving away. It was worth me expressing my feelings; sowing all my heart into poetic utterances that helped me understand my true feelings in order to grapple with the reality before me. Otherwise, I would have had less of an idea regarding what I was dealing with.

As I penned my letters I read them and re-read them. Then I would send them off, hoping for some response, which never came. That, too, helped my grief process; more and more reminders of unrequited love are needed in order to break down the walls of infatuated denial.

***

As a later observation, reflecting over the epistles years after, letter writing also serves as a snapshot of feelings felt once upon a time. As a stake in the ground, a line in the sand, we have ways of gauging our progress. Any time we can look back, amazed at how it once was, we determine that we have grown.

When it’s the death of a loved one, someone who can never respond, writing them a letter helps us imagine how they might have; it possibly softens the grief process during the irreconcilable hours and days. God ministers to us in peculiar ways.

Allowing, Not Forcing, Expression

Letter writing won’t work for everybody, or in all circumstances of grief, but it is a tool for those pining for such literary expression. Emotions that can be either spoken or written can be heard, read, and therefore better understood. More acceptance of the present-state ensues. Hearing ourselves say the words makes miraculous differences.

Importantly, though, we utilise it by allowing it, not forcing it, for doing that may suppress even further the awkwardness of emotions wedged deeply in the shadowy crevices of our spirits.

***

Longings for reconnection during grief are helped by the externalisation of otherwise untouchable feelings—if we feel strong enough. Writing to the person, or to the source of our grief, is like sobbing and screaming into a pillow. It helps.

Making Sense Of A Senseless Tragedy

2012-01-06T19:27:00.002+08:00

At 4 PM on some idle Tuesday, as the Sunscreen song puts it, some earth-ending shift has taken place, and those parties to it are vanquished to another psychological location—barely known to life; a circumstance of utter hellishness. They have, or better put, are, enduring a tragedy.

It was something possibly avoidable; something unpredictable; something much too painful to contemplate, then or now. The loss is all of these and so much more.

How do we make sense of such a senseless tragedy?

Well, as we may predict, there is no easy answer to that question, but it helps to understand all sorts of responses to tragedy could be expected.

Responses To Tragedy – Like Facets On A Diamond

Reading a News report on social media recently, I was amazed at the array of different responses to the tragedy that had been reported on. There were responses of condemnation, sympathy, horror, empathy, bewilderment, and sadness, among many more.

I found it is normal for some people to want to blame others, whilst it is equally normal for others to shelve all thought of blame. These latter ones are incredulous regarding those who would blame an innocent party for any part in such tragedy.

Is any single response to a tragedy wrong? If we may answer “Yes” to that we may quickly polarise away from the tragedy, itself. For we may be guilty of judging another’s response and, suddenly, there is little room for supporting those most affected. Then, in the presence of bickering they are alone. But, responses of conflict are just as equally normal as any other response!

There are as many valid responses to tragedy as there are people who might develop such responses.

Still, ours is not to judge, just to support if we can.

Positioned To Make Sense Of Senselessness

When numbness has taken its part in people’s lives, emotions prevailing harshly to the point of total immersion in a soul’s sense of chaos, how might we position ourselves to make sense (even if that were possible) of the senselessness, in order to help?

þ We should not feel guilty for thanking God that it’s not us. Other people’s losses should make us more thankful—within us—for the things we don’t have.

þ Accepting life throws its curve balls with frenetic unpredictability helps. No one can possibly be prepared for tragic news. Living in the moment will be hard enough. Acceptance of rollercoaster emotions, as best we can, is the key, as is accepting any and all responses of others without judgment or condemnation.

þ Practical assistance is always richly needed where words of advice seldom are. We ought to always open our ears, resourcefulness, and minds for prayer and ideas to help, rather than open our mouths with plastic platitudes or opinions—or contribute to social media discussion (unless it could be sure to help).

þ Whilst tragedies are often preventable, especially from the aspect of hindsight, our human nature dictates that human-caused tragedies have always happened and will always happen—to someone; they can and do, indeed, happen to us. What has happened has happened. Having an opinion is venturing into the irrelevant. Thought and action for how we may assist, however, is relevant.

Doing these things, and more, can only assist us in helping where we can.

***

Making sense of a senseless tragedy may be an impossible task, yet there are many good things we can do to make as much sense of the situation as we can. Discerning others’ needs is a good starting point, as is putting away opinions, and sticking with what is relevant. Tragedies require practical responses.

Spending Quality Time Together

2012-01-06T08:16:00.002+08:00

Such a simple title for something seemingly so difficult nowadays. The importance and the amount of quality time spent can only be determined by the couple in question. But there is possibly no better indicator regarding the commitment toward intimacy of each partner to the other than the want, the desire, to be with the other.

Spending quality time together is a choice not only for present happiness, but for the future of the relationship, also, for in future such times will be recalled as pleasant memories.

Determining Needs

Quality time, within the structure of the Love Languages, is that innate desire to connect with people, in this case our partners, in ways that involves spending significant time together.

The issues of significant time are many and varied; for some this is about being together a lot of the time, whilst others want to make something significant of their time together. Either way, determining needs as a couple is critical.

The needs of each partner can be discerned by the other in a discussion date, which is any ordinary date of mutual choice, spent out of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, with a set objective of discussing questions like:

þ How do we enjoy spending time with each other?

þ What does quality time together look like?

þ What things would we like to explore together?

þ What memories would we like to reflect on in the future regarding time spent together now?

Making Time

Most often one person in the relationship has higher quality time needs than the other and, therefore, those needs may go unmet. It would be rare for both partners to share an equal love, or need, of quality time. One will desire it more than the other. But both need to make time for it.

In a crazy life, where there is more than enough to do, and so much dilution of quality-anything, it is increasingly difficult to achieve a focused thing such as quality time. But it’s not impossible if we’re resolute and make this the most important thing for the relationship—if that’s what this relationship needs.

Making time is about being disciplined regarding decision-making. Making time is also about exploring new habits and breaking old ones regarding how we spend time.

***

Time is the currency of commitment and, when it’s spent together, it suggests a high price is worthy of intimacy.

Relationships develop in the seedbed of quality time spent together, where intimacy can flourish, which speaks volumes for commitment. We best determine mutual needs then make the time.

Finding Forgiveness

2012-01-05T07:46:00.002+08:00

“If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.”

~Psalm 130:3-4 (NIV)

Family times are typically high times where get-togethers become historical occasions added to the scrapbook of life. Yet, out of this backdrop comes many a family feud; out of nowhere, usually for all protagonists, comes conflict that, for a time, cannot be reconciled. Then, there is the inevitable issue of resolution and forgiveness and healing—one that stalks like wisdom in the night; silently it makes its way known to us, and to others, through our consciences.

After all, we need to be able to live with ourselves; that means living peaceably with our loved ones. When all our relationships are going well most of life is, too.

Every Human Being’s Yearning – To Experience Forgiveness

Whether people like this or not makes no difference, but it still proves to be a barrier.

The truth is we are wired with the yearning to experience forgiveness—of others, certainly, but to know deep within that sense of self-acceptance that can surely only come from knowing God’s forgiveness for the things we do and have done wrong.

Those who will not or cannot believe in God will not or cannot experience forgiveness. The concept is foreign and despicable to them. They may get on with people but, essentially, they cannot get along with themselves.

Indeed, it says something of our personal battle—to get along with ourselves, peaceably—that we yearn for the finding of forgiveness; to know that everything’s okay with us.

We really do need the saving message of grace to know that forgiveness never fails and we can never fail too much.

Family – God’s Gift Of Source Of Conflict And Learning For Forgiveness

Nobody will tug at our heartstrings and find our emotional pressure points, and therefore our weaknesses, like family will. God has gifted us with our families so we will be regularly reminded of the need for humility in order to live successfully.

Family is both a primary source of testing conflict and, therefore, the most important learning ground for forgiveness. The Lord will never deprive us the opportunity to learn forgiveness; for this reason we have family, whether close or distant, or by blood or allegiance (for, some that don’t have family may have family elsewhere in the matter of friends, colleagues, or acquaintances—with these, too, there will be conflict for the same purposes).

Learning to forgive is one of the most important human competencies.

***

Finding forgiveness is central to finding our identity. Knowing how to deal with conflict in order to achieve forgiveness, particularly in the family, is probably the most important of all life skills.

Only when we have experienced forgiveness can we serve God, appropriately, by serving our families.

The Wonders of Physical Intimacy

2012-01-03T15:34:00.002+08:00

Intimacy is a surprisingly spiritual quality known to the best of relationships. It can be thought as spiritual because there is an invisible power known to it, by the portion of blessing we receive from it when our relationships have closeness.

But what is powerful, so far as relational reward is concerned, is also enigmatic—we can become increasingly frustrated by the lack of intimacy, yet the harder we try (like restraining happiness) the more it evades us.

Intimacy, like happiness, can be a slippery thing.

There are two perceivable ways we can enjoy more intimacy: either if we work at a mental and emotional level on our relationships or if we create opportunities through physicality. Physical intimacy may often, and more tangibly, augment the deeper spiritual intimacy with our partners.

Employing Physical Intimacy

It could be said, because I’m a man, that physical intimacy is simply about more or better sex—it’s not only far more than that, it’s not even about that.

Employing physical intimacy as a way of enjoying more of a holistic intimacy we yearn for is doing simple things to ensure closeness—whether by more frequent and intense eye contact, holding hands, or hugging, or even standing close with one another whether we are engaged in conversation or not. Most tasks can be done to increase physical intimacy by better timing—to do them together, by intentional incidental contact.

Employing physical intimacy to feel closer to our mate is so simple we might neglect it as promising little worth the effort. But the simplicity involved in making the extra effort, even in doing innocuous physical things, is richly rewarded, even on a spiritual plane—to the warranting of the surprise factor; being caught by our partner doing something right!

Little things make big differences so far as intimacy is concerned, and a physical manifestation of such intimacy is all the more visible. Why would we not do it more often?

The Greater Blessings Of A More General Intimacy

Intimacy might be thought of as the pinnacle of romantic relationships, besides commitment that ensures safety and security, and passion which ever-strengthens our emotional and physical ties.

The wonders of physical intimacy are such that they make intimacy more poignant, so relevant, and ever front-of-mind. Such a thing ignites the more general, felt-on-the-inside intimacy.

Closeness, which is what is felt within intimacy, is what both committed partners’ desire most and above all, because, besides the commitment that is already implied, closeness is a base upon which romantic or companionate satisfaction is built, restored, and honed.

***

Enjoying good times and getting through more stodgy times suggests a foundation of intimacy is required. Such intangible things as trust and closeness need the support of a tangible physical intimacy—the spark to new levels of marital contentment.

Life After The End of Us

2012-01-02T22:11:00.002+08:00

Sitting numbly in the corner, barely able to move, the mind is reduced to mush in response to what has just occurred—even if that was months ago now, on a night like tonight or a day like today.

The romance that has characterised years of a pristinely-built identity has shrivelled overnight and is no more... those words “no more” have a pitch starkness about them and we hate it! Control is a thing we no longer have.

Whether it was by betrayal or falling out of love or the case of mismatch matters little at this stage as we reel in utter disbelief how life can be this gratingly raw.

Depths of loss can hardly be bridged in words—the whisper of death comes to the centre of our being and, again, we are “no more,” or so it seems.

The Death Of Something Precious

How do we give appropriate testimony or legacy or dignity to something so special that has been so sinfully ripped apart, limb for limb from the body that was two persons entwined as one?

Whatever side we’re on—the perpetrator or the victim, or both—there is the sublime sorrow that pins itself to us, a clinging vestige of nothingness, the appendage of darkness for glories gone by but never to return.

What To Do With The Mid-Time?

We may be in the mid-time, or at least we relate for some dark period in the oft-forgotten ether of our pasts. Such memories call back the taste of emotion, instantly, but that’s all. Strangely, we’re home to such pain. It’s become part of us.

Wisdom suggests we might learn something in this horrible baseness. It’s a sadistic reality we must hold to; it’s all we have.

The mid-time is about approaching something new from within us; the reconstruction of identity. We are becoming ourselves, again.

Re-Entering Life... When Grief Finally Departs

How long must grief linger?

It continues until it ends, and that ending comes without notice; far further off in the distance, much of the time, than any of us would like. And still, of occasion, a reminder takes us back there for a split second, an hour, a day.

***

Then, do we resume life? No; it cannot be.

This is new. We are reborn. It’s the only way it can be if we’re truly healed of the ballistic damage that impacted against us, obliterating the old self. Yet, we are still, and will always be, one-and-the-same person.

We have become better (and hopefully not bitter) for all this rubbish that went on.

***

‘The end of us’ is an all-too-familiar tale of two gone separate ways. An essential death has occurred and the mind can’t handle what the heart still grieves.

When grief ends, though, and it does, there is learning and acceptance. We grow and move and become bigger people for the experiences of death that threatened to swallow us, but didn’t.

The article was inspired by Adele’s song, Set Fire To The Rain.

The Blessed Grace Response

2012-01-02T19:46:00.002+08:00

Visiting a favourite breakfast eatery for the best way to start the day (after exercise) inevitably provides opportunities for reflective insight. One such recent insight came regarding the request for skim milk on a serving of cereal; what I didn’t expect was the smaller serving size (than normal) to boot.

I initially felt miffed to have missed out. Then I thought that the staff might have safely assumed that the request for skim milk was diet-related (not taste-related) and that a smaller sized meal was inferred.

What I later appreciated, besides their assumption, if indeed my insight was correct, is they read my intent and, therefore, I read theirs as customer-focused.

Assessing The Intent

Most often we make a mistake of judging people according to their actions, and not their intent—what they actually meant by their actions, implicit of their thoughts and innermost feelings.

We take the end result and we assess that and, quite wrongly, attribute to them some sort of warped performance rating—we judge them because we’re left with the observable consequence of the action. We may jump from our thoughtful consideration to an instant reaction that’s based out of a modicum of frustration, unmet expectations, or spiritual fatigue etc.

We’ve all got the potential to become emotional and, therefore, opinionated in an unguarded moment.

The better way is to be reminded that below the observable is the discernible—the real reason people do the things they do. Assessing the intent is about swapping judgment for interpersonal intrigue; the spiritual sense to look beyond self and what the self is missing out on to see what is going on within the other person or within the interpersonal dynamic.

Actively Reading For The Signs Of Intent

How might we begin to look for the signs of intent—to engage in the science of discernment; a wisdom activity not at all obvious to the naked eye?

First, we must be consciously aware not all we see is as it appears. There are many reasons for a person’s action and we can’t possibly know, each time, what that reason or those reasons are. We have so little valid understanding.

Second, watching for the signs of intent is based out of a unique interest in the person before us, in knowing that they, like we, are an enigma.

Thirdly, just as watching for intent is reserving judgment, it makes no quick assumptions; indeed, such assumptions are diligently avoided.

Actively reading for the signs of intent is more of a pastime-of-love than a point-by-point lesson in human interaction. We studiously engage in momentary reflection.

***

Most people, as they interact with us, do things by purer motives then we assume. Issuing grace—the benefit of any doubt—is friendlier, fairer, and an act preventing potential regret for misjudgment.

Has God Really Heard My Prayer?

2012-01-01T04:37:00.003+08:00

“The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.”

~Psalm 6:9 (NIV)

“But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer.”

~Psalm 66:19 (NRSV)

What is a ready-made and predictable question—the abovementioned title—took me by mild surprise when it was asked of me in the early hours of a recent morning.

How do we know God truly hears our prayers—those shouts from our groaning, burdened hearts that deal with calamity, betrayal, and the spirit’s desolation? Any decent answer to such a question requires instant and ongoing reflection in justifying the right answer for the occasion. No ‘pat’ answer will do.

So, why would God hear and how do we know?

Encountering The True And Living God By Prayer

The God of the universe and all creation sits ever present everywhere in life, whether by our circumstances, geographically, or by the presence of the Spirit residing within each person, endorsed of love.

We can be assured that God does hear, not simply because that’s the promise of the Bible, but we can know that God has designed life around the portents of love, and prayer is such a universal human need (very few people do not pray); God is love and would not have designed us to reach out in prayer had he not the capacity to hear our prayers.

We can know, without any doubting in our hearts, and without justifying it within our minds—by pure faith good enough for the saints of old—that God does hear every single one of our prayers.

Indeed, God feels every silent temptation, hears every troubled thought, and is privy to all our secrets—good, bad, and indifferent; so good is the grace to know we’re never condemned. The Lord understands our human plight.

One Sure Sign Of An Encounter With The Living God

If there is one sign all Christians agree on, that demonstrates God has heard our prayers, it’s this: by the sense of gentle peace felt deep in our souls, a tranquillity that transcends understanding, because we have offered, in faith, our prayers in honest forthrightness.

There are many ways to have an encounter with this living God—a Lord living within us and all through life, especially in the scary bits. And in the present context it’s via prayer that this living God makes himself known to us by that sense of peace... the problem or issue that precipitates our prayer has not gone and the pain is still there, but a strange peace coexists with it enabling us to keep our heads above the threatening waters. That peace remits hope, giving us the ability to dig in and get through, somehow.

***

After we have prayed we should know God has heard our prayer, simply because of the strange lightness of heart we feel, despite the pain present. If we don’t feel heard we should pray more and keep praying until we feel heard. God hears all prayer, but we need to know it within our hearts by a peace that transcends understanding. If we don’t give up, God will show up.

A Vision For The New Year

2011-12-31T09:18:00.002+08:00

What better resolution could there be entering a New Year than simply to have a better, more thankful, year than the one just gone?

Whether it’s a health goal or better financial security or the peace of spiritual success (or anything else), we all desire to have life better than we’ve had it. Yet, it doesn’t always work that way. This is why many people have trepidations about the concept of ‘beginning over’.

Some people choose not to begin over; they’re resistant to the whole concept of New Year as a fresh beginning. It doesn’t matter how people think. Everyone wants a happy life (however people individually define it).

The New Year’s Resolution for those who don’t make them is a special one; it clinches the field as far as goal-setting goes, simply because it defeats the need to even set a goal. This Resolution is about choosing a vision for life. This is a broad direction to head in. It’s a consuming focus.

Sample Visions

Here’s how a personal vision might look:

C Rather than pick something to ‘give up,’ or ‘take up’ something new, I want to live smart one moment at a time. For me, that is to ... ... ...

C What makes me happiest is ... ... ... so I’m going to do more of that from now on, because I can.

C You know, I’m sick of having regrets about family, so I’m just going to be more gracious and more forgiving, and a little more generous with my time.

C I can’t wait until I look into the mirror and like – no, love – what I see! If I want something bad enough I can achieve it. Whatever happens I’m accepting who I am.

C I see people all around me getting degrees and diplomas. I see that for myself within five years. One day I’ll be doing ... ... ... and helping people. That’s my dream life.

C Volunteering is something I’ve been promising myself for years. I’m going to start actively exploring it. A few years from now I’ll look back and thank God because of the people I’ve met and worked with, and the things I’ve done.

C From now on I’m backing off on the workload I’ve been under. I’m stressing less from now on.

C Time to add yours ________ here!

Overall Benefits

It’s important that your vision is written in your words that have special meaning for you. This sort of idea trumps those with detailed and specific ideas on what to do or not do. That’s because a vision for something different is worlds bigger than the detail found in the typical New Year’s Resolution.

The idea here has been to think bigger on an overall life perspective. And perhaps the most significant benefit is we don’t limit ourselves to one year or to one failure. Neither does one year nor one failure define us.

Vision is about the whole of our lives, and so what if we fail here and there. It’s how we get back up that counts most. It’s what we achieve over our lifetime that makes the difference in the final analysis.

The hare might be to the New Year’s Resolution what the tortoise is to the vision; sure, soon we’ll have to take the plunge, but the New Year is not just about another year, it’s about the next step toward the rest of our lives.

Journeying Beyond Betrayal

2011-12-30T17:12:00.003+08:00

Common to relationships and love is the portion of cursing in the matters of betrayal. We are not the only ones to have been betrayed! Indeed, it won’t be the last time it will occur, so let’s expect it when we least possibly expect it (if that’s possible).

The test of any relationship’s strength is how it wrangles with and survives conflict—the key question is, can it survive and possibly even thrive because of it?

The truth is so many relationships have!

The betrayal that polarised minds and tore intimacy apart was the very thing that proved the catalyst of commitment—to try to live apart or to have life this different way proved the worth of the relationship; that very conflict, when it was fairly and justly sorted, thrust before both the meaning in the relationship, even in the harsh light of day.

It Takes Two To Tango

Just as it was likely that two caused the initial ruction, and if not directly then indirectly, so too do two create the bridge that broaches the chasm.

All that is required for love to ensue is the faith-held promise, one to another, to a form that will prove as a two-pack epoxy in the sight of God, the Primer. Two it is that make a sticky mix that promises to harden beautifully into product, and it takes two to make the dance and song of life together come along. Few would argue, and sensibly so.

Commitment is the byword of hope for all relationships; and whilst it’s sometimes true that it takes two to break a relationship, it’s always true it takes two to make a relationship.

Betrayal Is No End In Itself

If we were to contend that the sin of betrayal were an end beyond fresh beginnings then we’d be telling God he got it wrong in the design, bringing, and begetting of salvation—that’s a Trinitarian blasphemy aimed at defrauding the Lord all ownership of redemption.

No, those that own the lay of the reconciliatory land are those that happen to be the protagonists—and no other. There is life after betrayal if they wish it so.

With all the emotive will and skill known to each one, they consider the merits of their unique situations and stake claims of life or peril, and all between.

Then There Is Trust

When all is said and done we come to the central caveat of trust—for the initial perpetrator; or the next one, or situation, arriving at our shores.

Trust is to the low tide of the relational coastline in terms of betrayal. Whenever the tide is out and betrayal goes up and trust goes down surely we must know that joy is, for a time, extinguished.

Our joy we can have back, and peace, when we do our internal work of bringing the tide in, by learning to trust again; perhaps neither the person nor the situation, maybe, but we learn what we can and resolve to trust again.

Journeying beyond betrayal is just that: learning what we can and learning to trust again. And in these things we’re healed.

***

There is a beautiful land well beyond the troubled shores of betrayal. This land is home to peace and joy and it embraces love, because it can trust; that is because it has done its internal work with God. Many relationships have great hope beyond betrayal but both partners need to be equally committed.

Hate Talk Makes People Walk

2011-12-29T07:17:00.004+08:00

To love as God would in the world is the great privilege of the class of humanity, yet a trillion shimmering stars of indifference separate you and I because of our ever unique value-sets. Let’s face it, we will not agree. But we can still respect each other.

One thing many Christians still do not get is hate talk makes people walk.

A salient, ever topical, subject is that of homosexuality: the sexuality and spirituality of being gay. Few subjects will divide and conquer the purposes for fellowship or evangelism than this one. Everyone, it seems, has a strong view either way, or an equally strong view straight down the midline. Any view is quickly polarised and rendered loveless.

I have to admit I struggle to accept homosexuality; I see this as God’s challenge to me, though, to grow in tolerance toward those in same-sex relationships. It’s not their issue (apart from their personal relationship with the Lord) as far as God is concerned; it’s mine. Each of us, ultimately, is accountable to God alone. That I could be offended in any way is God saying to me, “Let me help you sort you out, Steve.” God is no respecter of persons because they are this or that. The Lord’s love is equal for all.

But that separated, we come back to the core issue: hate talk.

The Casting Division Of Hate Talk

We need to understand that hate talk, in this frame, is not essentially about talk that intentionally offends a person or persons (though it is that, too); no, it’s talk that expresses our hatred for something, however ‘immoral’ or personally distasteful, without thinking about how our mode and mood of expression might impact others—particularly those who may attach themselves centrally to the issues we’re ‘attacking’.

And it can be hard to know who stands on what side. That’s the thing with hate talk; it loses context with the present tense and it harbours a grudge for the deeper value betrayed. It sinks into a bygone era, or at least it loses time and touch for love.

When we come together in bonds of friendship and commonality, yet we spiral back into ourselves and the hidden tentacles of our inner fears, even for an instant, we betray another person, perhaps, in spite of the vast numbers applauding what we are saying or doing.

Haters may have their support, but still the silent majority will walk. Haters soon lose credibility for love. And if the hater calls themselves Christian that, there, is a cosmic dichotomy! It’s more Pharisaic and not Jesus-like at all.

***

We’re all potentially perpetrators of hate talk, because it’s the way we think, especially when we consider the world dark, grey, and formidable.

But we can be better than hate if we can understand our fears run cross-grain to the hope of community—the fellowship of love where individual desires and fears must give way to the tolerance of embraced diversity where we let God be God; yes, even a respectful silence, or the love-guarded word, when the world is going pear-shaped.

It’s a trick for young spiritual players to meddle idealistically in the world of current affairs and ethics in showing the cards in their hand of the flesh, veiled in the words of the Bible.

This is not to say there is to be abject tolerance of overt sin—which presumably has a relational malevolence about it. But we are all sinners and we must understand that hatred of sin to the point of judgment generally turns back toward hatred of the sinner, if we haven’t mastered the offence felt within ourselves, first. Recall the ‘plank and speck’ story of Jesus’? (Matthew 7:1-5)

***

Hate talk comes centrally from a section of indifference from within the hater. The hate turns back on the hater and their world shrivels and their relationships suffer; even of those they love. Hate talk is diametrically opposed to being Christian. If we’re Christian we’re not to hate; not ever.

Are non-believers to be turned off Christ before they’ve even sensed a whiff of salvation, because they hear hate from so-called believers? I should never be.

The Secrets Never Told

2011-12-27T18:25:00.002+08:00

People’s reactions are often opposite to what they’re actually feeling. We know this by our experience, perhaps where we pretended to be pleased in a certain situation, but within we were quietly seething. This is obvious to some; less obvious to others.

Some relationships we have feature inherent conflict—for no want of rhyme nor reason we know those we don’t get along with, but we have little idea—in most realities—why. We cannot climb inside their brains or feel with their hearts, and few human beings we develop enough intimacy with to truly understand.

The saying that ‘secrets are never told’ may be self-evident, but it has more bearing on our relationships than we ordinarily account for.

Appreciating What We Don’t Know

What might appear absurd is, without doubt, our challenge. We need to somehow appreciate what we don’t know, and will never know. Such an appreciation is the gift of an ever-opened mind.

Such an appreciation is also the constant cognitive clarification that ensures fewer assumptions are made, meaning less relational damage takes place.

Knowing that there are secrets about, that trust within certain relationships will be scant, helps us understand other people; it doesn’t hinder our relationships, because we understand the barriers to communication are common to human experience and can be explained person-to-person.

Appreciating what we don’t know is also appreciating we don’t need to know everything; indeed, we are saved from much senseless knowledge and many vexing pieces of information which would make life so horribly complex.

Trying Our Best To Expose Our Own Secrets In Safety

What may be the case in ordinary lives around us—the keeping of secrets by others regarding their real perceptions within our interactions—is no excuse for us, however.

It is a blessed situation for us to accept the fact that others carry their secrets, whilst ensuring we have trustworthy sounding boards to share our secrets with. This is an effective way of dealing with our problems and junk.

It is blessed because it features both acceptance for things we cannot change (regarding others) and courage to change the things we can (regarding ourselves). Only through doing both things, practicing acceptance and courage, can we grow in wisdom as far as our relationships are concerned.

***

Many secrets of life we cannot change, and we are blessed to accept they exist. Not assuming that the appearance of our relationships means much, we enter into relations with a healthy open mind. Others’ secrets we can do nothing about, but accept it’s a universal human practice to cherish personal privacy.

If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?

2011-12-26T22:29:00.003+08:00

I often wonder whether male and female responses to relationship breakdown differ much. I tend to think there are more similarities than differences, after all these are the issues of rejection, and the will to move on, we’re dealing with.

On the side of the aggrieved, not the perpetrator of breakups, this sentiment holds such truth:

“Don’t let it happen again,

‘Cause that I couldn’t take,

Once was quite enough,

It’s easy to forgive, harder to forget.”

~Mental As Anything, If You Leave Me Can I Come Too (1981).

One breakup may be quite enough, even more than enough, for most people to bear. But beyond the starkness is a soon-to-be cherished hope; one that cannot yet be seen.

The Betwixt Pain of Separation

It may be very apt to compare the loss of a relationship with the loss of a loved one, but for many perceivable differences, not the least of which the other party to the relationship is still alive (for better or worse), but there are issues of rejection to deal with, not to mention we can no longer have what we want—them!—when another person can; and hurt, potentially, tears us apart from within.

Perhaps it’s best not to compare losses, for losses are unique in their manifestation and by our experience of them. But, then, we do tend to compare.

How can we truly gain any real grasp of the enormity of issues involved in relationship breakdowns? Even when they occur to us we can neither make head nor tail of the horror of them.

Whether it’s the betrayal that cuts like a knife, the fact nothing we can do can change the situation, or just plain numbness we feel—all that, itself, defies rationality. It can only be experienced in real time, hopefully with copious meaningful support.

Accepting Emotions That Come from Nowhere

The main thing I recall from my experience of marriage breakdown was the fact of emotions I didn’t know existed. I had never suffered before; the idea of loss, even the very thought, was just too bizarre, too horrible, and possibly too painful to consider.

For weeks in the early period I just wanted to sleep; to be anaesthetised from my world of pain. And I couldn’t afford feelings of betrayal—I still held much hope (as was the case for nine whole months) that the marriage could be somehow reconstructed, ‘put back anew’. I vacillated between varying fashions of denial. And my attitude definitely was, If you leave me can I come too?

I couldn’t see a world without my then wife or as a live-in father for my daughters.

These emotions that come from nowhere, or worse, from somewhere too reminiscent, need to be dealt with eventually, but not necessarily in their rawness—when the pain may be too great to safely encompass. But, we are commended for praying for the time and the courage to deal with these irreversible problems.

***

Relationship breakdown pain hits alarm-bell proportions when we find there’s no coming back; adjustment when there is just no choice is cruel, but ever more real.

Acceptance and adjustment are long roads and we may simply battle to crawl, let alone speed to our destination in a high-powered vehicle.

What we need, right now, in the midst of the pain, is a creative way of dealing with it, during those healthier moments—the brightening hours—before the sun of our soul’s sets once more into oblivion. There is regeneration out of desolation, but only in the midst of harmonising grace.

Becoming a Man of God, Again

2011-12-26T06:35:00.008+08:00

Christmases are anticipated with trepidation among many a family for a vast range of reasons. I have to admit to that selfsame trepidation as I plan around my unique family dynamics. Indeed, I am part of my own problem. I get anxious about the broken family dynamic and try my best to cover for it—inevitably, I try too hard.

The effect of trying too hard had a surprising spin-off during my most recent Christmas, when I received the gift of a coffee mug, emblazoned CAUTION: NEXT MOOD SWING IN 5 MINUTES. In the moment I received it I had to laugh; the longer I thought about it, however, the more I felt incensed that this was truly the way my precious family members perceived me.

I may have a part in God’s work, having believed that I have found my call, but what does being perceived as moody and unpredictable emotionally have to do with the Lord’s great commission?

Was I just wasting my (and more poignantly, God’s) time?

The spirit of disconsolation would have me believe that, and besides the fact that family see me warts and all, whereas church and ministry contact is purified in the Presence of God and of common goals, I have to face the truth: I am no better than the next person, and due to my ‘feeling’ personality—which is my only perceptible excuse—I may actually be worse; and certainly worse from an unbeliever’s viewpoint because they may see me as self-righteous. And that, too, is not untruthful—if I appear prideful, even to one, there is more than a shred of evidence to support it.

‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’

I might hate to say it, and whilst I can see, I do hate to say it, but I am so seriously flawed it amazes me that God would even want to use me, besides wanting to show me how far I often am—attitudinally—from his immediate Presence.

The biggest part of the problem is I see more readily others in their pride, with their faults, more naturally than I do my own. I’m probably no different to you; sorry to make such an all-encompassing and dispassionate assumption about you. But my observation of human nature leads me to think that pride is a sweepingly common thing.

But, we digress from my problem.

There are many ways to define humility, and one way may be to see it as the most natural aversion to pride; if that be the case for me I might often pick myself up in my pride, but most of the time I’m not as quick as I would like to be. I can see my fault, apologise, and even institute reparation, but typically the damage might already be done.

The truth hurts.

The truth is I want to be seen as a good person—right, just and fair—yet, that is not typically me. And whilst I am a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ, most of the world does not see me that way. Most of the everyday world I belong to sees me as a normal person, dealing with my stuff, struggling to love, failing often, and yes, with mood swings to boot!

Again, the truth hurts, especially for someone who espouses to be a man of God. I follow Jesus but I make a hash of it a lot of the time. And though Jesus never gives up on me, much of my world does, like you might feel much of your world does, too. It’s hard to live for God when we get it wrong a lot of the time.

If this is your truth, as it is mine, it hurts. (But, as we should know, there is hope only beyond it. There’s no need to be perfect, or even close, when we have a perfect Saviour!)

Many Problems Together Means No Simple Solution

Added to the above problem—about how I am perceived by those who most know me, by the fact they see me at my most vulnerable—is a problem that has plagued my whole life. I struggle, immensely at times, with self-control over sensate stimulation; typically, these days, food.

If I don’t watch myself I overeat, and though I look fit, and am otherwise healthy, this lack of self-control sets me apart as a carnal man; not someone especially spiritual.

Part of my problem is I want to feel comfortable in uncomfortable situations, and food is one way to artificially ameliorate such discomfort. Remember, I can’t handle the truth. Can you relate?

Many times I feel quite perplexed in defining what the actual problems might be. Rather than sit and quietly pray I will choose to do something; typically write. Whether writing is ministry or therapy is beside the point. Many of the things I write about are personal reflections, morphed through theological reflection, as God works through me to heal myself—and that process is nowhere near complete.

I am to make a study of humility, because as the person becoming a man of God again I need to make my offering of worship. That offering of worship is, at least today, to grow in my understanding and application of humility. That is what God, through a small Christmas gift, has impressed upon me. I am thankful for such revelation.

***

One thing I’ve learned: if you can be better, be better. Not in a self-righteous way, but simply out of prudent self-leadership that’s irrefutably subject to God.

Being people of God is, more so, becoming people of God, again, each day as a continual process—of drawing near to the Presence of the Lord.

All I Want For Christmas Is You

2011-12-24T11:26:00.002+08:00

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.”

~Song of Solomon 8:6 (NRSV)

The Christmas story—Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, born to Mary in a manger—redeems the essence of love; a concept so powerful it is a mystery that captivates our imagination in such ways that love is never fully realised; it’s not ever truly sated.

If we ever needed Jesus once, we will need him ever more.

Personal Stories of Deliverance

The Christmas story is about love: the Son of God coming as a mortal to convey and commit the Father’s redemption plan for humankind—the plan hatched in the unity of God.

The living God, resplendent in the Holy Spirit, has one request for Christmas (and every other day): All I want for Christmas is you... to redeem you, to love you, to restore you, to make you into all you can become.

Stories of deliverance are personal and they are unfolding, before our consciousness, today—afresh, in new ways, in new times, and never repetitively or tiresomely requited.

When one person has been delivered in such ways they know the strength of love that brings death to the old life. A new creation is born.

Personal Stories of Love’s Passion

Has anything ever captivated us as much as love has?

The love of a partner, or the infatuation that has been spared no human being, for we have all fallen for it, is irrefutable and irreconcilable; and if not a person, it’s a practice, a predilection, or the predestined will.

It’s easy for the many to relate: All I want for Christmas is you... to have you, to love you, to comfort and be comforted by you, to be adored by you.

Love’s passion, as so powerfully encapsulated in the Song of Solomon quote above, is too hot to handle. It makes and breaks our lives.

Then There Was the True Significance of Christmas

It is unfortunate that the world is sown a lie: that Christmas is about Santa Claus, reindeer, and gifts given all over the world over one single night.

I suspect, though, given the nature of Divinity, that the Lord is personally unperturbed by this pagan ritual veiled in peace and goodwill toward all humanity, whilst knowing, however, that such lies take humanity away from the truth: that the gift of salvation was given over the whole world during one single event, not at the birth of Jesus, but, at his death.

Still, peace and goodwill could never be a lie—it’s perfectly appropriate, then, that the tradition of Christmas is entirely virtuous. It’s a beautiful time to look forward to and to enjoy.

The true significance of Christmas is, however, the foretelling of Jesus story: the gift of salvation in redemption back to the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. Such a love as that is “a raging flame”: the one and only living God and divine love for all creation.

Such a love can never give up on us: that’s the real Christmas story.

Watching for Pain at Times of Joy

2011-12-23T06:39:00.004+08:00

We’re apt to look for enjoyment, especially at festive times, but those selfsame festive times exacerbate the ever-present struggles of life. When we look deep into ourselves we cannot ignore this pain; the pain in others’ lives if it doesn’t impinge on us more directly.

With an eye and an ear we do so much of God’s sleuth work, determining the real sources of misery and injustice as they combine to make life difficult.

The Goal of Helping One Person

The desire to help is understandable, but because of all sorts of fear or lack of opportunity to practice what we otherwise think or believe we may not often do it.

But if we know that there is pain always at the point of joy, just as there may be relief in the presence of mourning, and we are looking, we will be positioned when the opportunity comes (and it will come, eventually) and all we need to do is overcome the situational fear to do one bold thing in love.

It might sound corny, but helping one person, even with an innocuous act of listening to their heart cry, helps them in a sublime way and it helps us connect with the heart of God.

God’s heart is always with the poor the spirit, especially at high times.

Personal Benefits

The blessing, felt personally, at the discernment of other people’s problems is we feel principally grateful for the pain we don’t have—the pain we see in them. This gratitude has an outworking in thoughts, at least, of a usable empathy.

We can only ever come close to knowing more about God, in our world, when we place ourselves in positions the serve.

Just as Jesus came not to be served, but to serve—as a model for us to follow—we are blessed by knowledge, the anointing of love, when we give ourselves over as that vessel toward God’s end in another one’s life.

The personal benefit is a spiritual one; the knowledge of God as the Spirit works in the world. These personal benefits take us on our journey toward the prized possession of characterised humility: the knowledge of truth as our lives sit within the context of life and other people’s lives.

There are personal benefits for the person helped, also. We cannot truly know these, if we’re of true help, but we can know in faith that we’re doing a service for God, and that, there, is the privilege of life.

***

How much more beautiful would our world be if, at joyous times, each person in their merriment kept even a portion of their mind free, to look, toward service, for the one in pain?

There will always be opportunities to help those in pain; a pain made no better at joyous times, indeed, it may truly be made worse.

God knows this, also, which is something we often forget: in each person’s joy is the silent echo, a reminder, of their pain; however muffled at that time it may be. Each person may be helped.

Seek Simplicity

2011-12-22T06:05:00.003+08:00

The cooling waft on warm skin on a summer’s evening reminds us of the Presence of God—the simplicity of solution in the midst of a problem; the stickiness of the ambient humidity.

“... the truth will make you free.”

~John 8:32b (NRSV)

God’s Presence is just as pertinent on a still night with no breeze; it’s just that we might commonly seek our own indirect-and-inferior solutions, instead. The simple solution evades.

When we seek simplicity, or agree with it, we tend to attract the goodness of life, unadulterated by human processing: the cheapening of the living accord.

From the Mountains to the Valleys

All through life there is an undercurrent known to humankind, but such a cosmos as humanity has commonly gone the opposite way—they preferred darkness (John 3:19).

This galloping into darkness negates the facts of creation and the laws of the universe, indeed the very fact of God, and it suffers in frustration as a consequence.

The most pervasive thing known to existence is the law of the land that compels us to be blessed in simplicity, yet cursed in our preponderance to choose, instead, for complexity.

And even when we don’t choose for complexity we must deal with it. Life is complex. But it is made less complex, gradually, as we begin to follow the direct path of God. This Spiritual way sees us right whether by mountains or valleys—and all situations between.

Personal Benefits in Seeking Simplicity

The personal benefits in seeking simplicity are as numerous as can never be counted, and the processes of faith accorded to our understanding mean that counting is beyond reasonable sense.

We must simply believe that to seek simplicity is to seek for blessing.

Surely the accursed have known it long enough to want to turn from it—the wide life that leads to nowhere; a life pungent with no sense of life at all, just memories of regret and want of light in escaping the pitch darkness.

Ironically, these are the ones that appreciate the blessedness of seeking for simplicity; they have run the gauntlet and proven the way of God for their very selves.

***

To run hard after God, to enter life’s narrow way, is nothing but a choice—to go, today, upon the direct path where the Lord might lead us; one light at a time, to the better, more simple way.

When we seek simplicity we run our lives in tune to the Symphony of God.

Such a Symphony is not hard to hear, but we need to listen with simple, focused intent.

Being the Respectful Lover

2011-12-20T23:44:00.003+08:00

Many men find it difficult, and for a few almost impossible, to rein in their desires regarding their lovemaking with their wives. Likewise, women may occasionally find respectfulness the missing link in their relationships—despite how otherwise well-behaved their husbands might be.

It may be a sad reality that a man’s intimacy may grow to the detriment of his respectfulness for his wife. We are speaking, of course, in generalisations. This will not apply to all men and women, or in all marriages.

Harnessing Respectfulness

It is critically important for a woman to feel respected; that her man finds her attractive and interesting to the point that she receives nothing less than his full courtesy, because that is what she deserves—his fullest portion of love in ways that hold relevance to her.

It is just as necessary for a man to feel respected within the relationship. Indeed, several noted writers have detailed significant works on the man’s need to be respected and the woman’s need to be loved.

But respectfulness, one given to another, is a right and privilege of, and for, both.

Harnessing such respectfulness is enquiring, and perhaps often, regarding how it is for our partners. This needn’t be done in any aggressive or submissive sense; just in a way that promotes the wellbeing of our partner.

Shifting the Emphasis

Being a respectful lover of our wife or husband is really determined by them, not us; if we consider them to be fair judges of respectfulness; and we ought to. There is nothing to be gained in thinking they are not. There is, though, much to be gained in converting any intelligence they will give us into learning so our respectfulness can be increased or made more meaningful.

This is about shifting the emphasis; understanding what the core issue or issues are, in behavioural speak, and constructing plans to oversee the changes we seek (because we, alone, must accept ownership for any changes we feel we need to make).

Shifting the emphasis is about understanding the presence of any barrier to respectfulness, as it is knowing the terms on which our partners determine what is respectful and what isn’t. Once we know these things we can set about addressing them; and we need to.

***

Being a respectful lover is the unwritten both-ways covenant invoked, silently, by the other partner. Both owe it to each other, but more so they owe it to themselves, for being a respectful lover is being self-respectful.

Cherishing Every Eternal Being

2011-12-20T19:07:00.002+08:00

Far removed from the glamour and compunction of clinging humanity is the spectre of God as it surrounds all creation; yes, from this view we see all things differently.

People who seek to set their agendas are scared little ones or deceived by their own grandeur; those happy-go-lucky ones are simply making sense of an oft-nonsensical world through the processes of acceptance.

We hardly think of other people, or ourselves for that matter, as being from, or of, eternity; but from God we came, and to God we will soon go.

In the meantime, God has sought to bring us together in a realm of physicality—a sense so material, but, due our awkwardness, always somewhat at odds with our truer, irrevocable sensibility. For this reason we must sympathise with our fellow men and women. Nobody has life all sorted out.

Refocusing For Empathy

Such is our grounded nature, in and of the world, we cannot see people or life as they truly are—or, not for long. We lose focus.

We must refocus, reimagining as if we were the Spirit that actually engineers and fuels life.

This truth is due our utmost concern: each being is divine; a spirit within them begotten by God Almighty in the heavens. (This language may read loftily, but when we consider the significance of such things, awe is the only reconcilable emotion.)

But, nevertheless, it is compelling that we live and breathe together in a cacophony of spiritual physicality; every growing moment is a surreal manifestation—a gift from the Most High. And all of this is less than nothing without humanity—all creation, as it is, confirms and applauds the Presence of the Creator.

How could we exist here, in the locale of time, and not know and feel this?

What good is refusal; the will to deny?

Why should love be condemned when it’s the only logical explanation?

Upon Conviction To Love

If there is anything good to be convicted of, surely, it’s love—the spending of one’s life toward the best attempt possible to live for others. For by reciprocation this way is best for us, too. Yes, a love given is so often returned.

The conviction to love is a blessed possession—one we take no credit for—for the majesty of divine reason is made fully known by our faith, though we cannot explain it. The conviction to love is just simply blessed.

***

Love it is that showers upon a person the understanding that senses the vestige of eternity in another. And when eternity is seen in them it makes all the difference—loving them is made easier, for they are from God.

Falling In Love Again

2011-12-19T18:52:00.001+08:00

There are perhaps few more irritating issues than being in a long-term partnership that “should be” and seeing a younger, more vibrant couple—one that “is.” Falling in love again might be our keenest desire and it can be tormenting.

For the many that consider themselves ‘in love’, there are maybe as many out-of-love or, worse, resigned to the fact love has long since left town and cannot be recaptured.

When we feel out of control to the hope of love we may still struggle with competitiveness.

We must get over the ‘show-off’ element—them or us. It’s a common temptation to want to project a loving, and therefore successful, relationship. A lack of integrity does nothing, though, to breed an environment where intimacy, commitment, and passion can swell.

Relational outcomes can only be improved when we’re honest enough as a couple, and when there is a shared desire.

Grounding Important Realities

One thing we must best acknowledge, also, is the fact that all healthy marriages/relationships go through troughs of shared dissonance or individual ambivalence—mostly for little apparent reason.

Sometimes this is because something new has emerged; it’s almost always about competing forces. What competes for the attentions of the relationship—time and effort spent?

Another important reality that impacts all relationships is the ebb and flow of life. Like a sportsperson is found in-form or out-of-form, marriages have their seasons of both bliss and frustration—and, in fact, all between.

The theory of falling in love again is, however, possibly as simple as noting and applying the following triangular theory.

Love as a Triangle

Falling in love again, or improving anything regarding love, is about attending to three core elements: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Intimacy is created by swimming behind our partner, in determining what waves they are dealing with and how they are coping—not for feedback, but for empathy.

Passion cannot be reinvigorated without a platform of relational intimacy, unless it’s a selfish passion—that’s not what we want. Intimacy, therefore, is the usual precursor to falling in love again. Anything that engenders intimacy may take us closer to passion.

Commitment can’t be underestimated, for where there is commitment, especially by both parties, the motivation is inherent and the wherewithal is found.

Falling in love again is about intimacy first and foremost, underpinned by commitment, with passion as a crucial benefactor. Falling in love again is as much about reinventing intimacy, passion, and commitment as it is reclaiming it.

The Sword of Love

2011-12-18T08:02:00.005+08:00

Throughout such a realm known as time, there is such a thing, The Sword of Love. It comes upon life, sister to common reason, and it conquers or divides, because it forces decision. This is the love of commitment.

It can take no prisoners. Its very purpose is determining the sanctity of the will.

The Sword of Love works rather like the Word of God:

“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

~Hebrews 4:12 (NRSV)

Life Requires Obedience to This Sword of Love

We get the choice to live or not live in this life—to not live is to perpetually sit in the no-man’s land of indecision; the skirting of commitment; the shirking of accountability.

Show me a man or a woman who cannot, or will not, commit to major life undertakings, or even receive accountability, and I will show you someone who has decided to fail in the endeavour of life. They may begrudge life, God, or anyone else, but the irony is they have only one to begrudge—they are closer to ‘them’ than they think.

Such people may go around in some stupor of command dictating this and that, reacting virulently to the various challenges of life, kicking hard against truth, but one thing cannot be changed:

The Sword of Love beckons ever so persistently, even at their refusal.

Those humble enough to obey, and these are the many—for they have learned; so often the hard way—are blessed in the application of their God-anointed knowledge.

They know that The Sword of Love pursues not for conquest of revenge, but for the purpose of progress. There can be no progress without commitment, just like there cannot be any understanding without maturity. Those who can commit demonstrate, through their commitment, the stability of understanding sponsored by their maturity.

The Blessedness of This Sword of Love

As for those who have taken heed of the way life works, and have committed themselves to cooperating with The Sword of Love, they move on at Godspeed—flourishing at life, though certainly not without the occasional failure.

These are not scared of failure—though, they may give way to the fact that failure, whilst it is scary, is the platform for learning; God’s will is, in fact, located there.

Failure, and the acceptance of learning, is so often evidence of courage, underpinned by humility. With such competence for learning there is no fear of The Sword of Love; the rationale of commitment is understood.

***

What a wonderful peace sweeps through the lives of those who are friends with The Sword of Love: commitment has been found a sure and certain ally, aiding life by proving sure and reliable in others’ lives. Such a person can God rely upon.

Postscript: The Sword of Love has but one exception; that is explained When Commitment Is Wrong.