WE ONLY EVER SEE IN PART

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday, and this week's prompt word is PART.   

After nearly two months of quiet, it seems to be time to write again.   

We only ever see in part.  

There’s no way we can see every aspect of a situation, even if we want to and try to.

And it’s hard to see how we have played our part in the breakdown of a relationship or contributed to an implosion.

Years ago, the Lord corrected me when I said to someone, ‘There’s two sides to every story’. 

He said to me then, and reminded me again recently, that there are actually three sides.

There’s yours.

There’s mine.

And then there’s His.

He doesn’t see just your part or my part.   He sees all of it at the same time.  

He sees and deeply understands every part of the equation, every part of each person’s motives and actions and reactions.   He sees how each person played a part in the breakdown of the relationship.

He also sees when someone won’t own their part in it, but rather decides to cover it, hide it, wrap it in spiritual language, or cover for someone else who won’t own their part.

If everyone owns their part, then it’s possible to move forward, work through the issues, albeit painfully, and restore relationship, oftentimes stronger than before.

But when both sides can’t/won’t do that, then it falls on one person to wear the blame in the story, try harder, carry the weight of the pretence, to enable dysfunction to keep the peace.

There was a part of me that wanted to just leave well enough alone, to just sit quietly in the pews, to turn up when necessary, do my part, play my role and quietly retreat home each time, and stay away from most activities to reduce exposure and angst.    I asked Him if I could just stay quiet, to stay comfortable, to leave them to it most of the time, to keep the ‘peace’.   

But He had shown me things, put me in a place where I could hear and see what was happening, close up.   Something was very wrong and He was asking me to speak up.  I knew it would come at a cost, I just didn’t realise how much.  

That’s the part that was the hardest – risking the loss of approval and potentially relationship to speak up.  

He had spent over 12 months strengthening me to have the courage and clarity to speak up and risk my place, my friendships, my ministry.  All of that and more. 

And I did.  Not particularly graciously at times, but on several occasions, in different ways.

Little did I know that friendships would cease overnight, that I would be accused of various things to deflect from what I had exposed, that demands would be made that were impossible to heed and made it impossible to stay, and that all communication would cease. 

That is still creating shock waves for me, like the smashing of a stained-glass window.    All was not as it seemed.  

https://jp.pinterest.com/pin/355362226823304812/

I’ll own my part in it.   I wasn’t always gracious. I was angry and frustrated, for my sake, but also for those who’d been hurt and didn’t have the voice or the strength to speak.   I wasn’t wrong about what I could see.  

I didn’t address tensions earlier, but when I did, it was dismissed, deflected or buried.

I didn’t speak up enough, early enough, out of fear, loyalty, wanting to stay comfortable, wanting to protect my reputation.  

I can own my part, but I can’t wear the burden of everyone else’s part in the breakdown.   That’s not mine to carry.   

I’ll keep carrying what He shows me - my part - to the cross, and deal with it.   That’s my part to do. 

I acknowledged my sin to You.

And my iniquity i have not hidden. 

i said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.'

and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.   Ps 32:5

But for the sake of truth and righteousness I can’t own the parts that are not mine.   That doesn’t honour Him, doesn’t allow for forward movement, doesn’t allow for growth or change, doesn’t allow for mercy.     

Mercy requires truth, in all of its messiness.  

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for

“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.   1 Peter 5:5-7

  

God has spoken once,
Twice I have heard this:
That power belongs to God.
Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy;
For You render to each one according to his work.  Ps 62:11,12

 

In the meantime, I’m finding this lady’s perspective and support group helpful. 

https://www.instagram.com/thepearlperspective/

This song seems appropriate.    

How many times can one heart break?
It was never supposed to be this way
Look in the mirror, but you find someone you never thought you'd be

Oh, but I can still recognize
The one I love in your tear-stained eyes
I know you might not see him now, so lift your eyes to me

When you see broken beyond repair
I see healing beyond belief
When you see too far gone
I see one step away from home

When you see nothing but damaged goods
I see something good in the making
I'm not finished yet
When you see wounded, I see mended

 

 

 

A TIME TO KEEP SILENCE AND A TIME TO SPEAK

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and this week's prompt word is TIMING.

Timing is everything!

We’ve all heard that.   It’s not quite everything but it sure is important. 

The Bible says that there is a time for everything, and that’s always helpful to remember when you’re waiting on something to change.  

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.     Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 

I’m always amazed at God’s timing on things, even the little things.

I’m amazed at how He orchestrates events, appointments, ‘random’ interactions with ease, things that seem unconnected and yet work together to bring clarity, create solutions, provide resources, solidify connections, add meaning, heal wounds. 

I stayed in my hometown last night to visit my daughter and grandson, and catch up with a friend.   He said to me last night, “Visit the cemetery in the morning and drive past the old house”. 

I so did not see that coming!!  

So, this morning I took the opportunity to visit my parents’ joint grave.   They died about 12 weeks apart, my Dad in December and Mum in February.

It’s the first time I’ve been to their grave since Mum’s funeral and I went alone. 

I stood there and got really honest about where I was at with it all.  

No tears, no anger, just an overarching sadness at how things were for them as people, but also for us as a family.

I found myself saying out loud, but not particularly loudly,  “I’m grateful for what you gave me and did me for me, but…..

I’m also grateful to no longer be carrying the weight of your problems, responsibilities, abuse, and dysfunction.”  

As I went to walk away, the Lord quietly said to me, “You also carried the weight of their secrecy and you covered their immaturity.  You overextended yourself to cover it, because they never owned it for themselves.  

You covered their dishonesty with themselves and about themselves.    You made endless allowances and second guessed yourself because they denied the reality of their choices and the consequences.  You struggled under the weight of their neglect and their choices and their refusal to own it.”

Wow!!  I hadn’t realised how much I had normalised all of that.     

He showed me my patterns of covering up and second guessing myself, learning to dismiss what I could see so as not to cause backlash, learning to cover up secrets and compensate for destructive behaviour, learning to be quiet. 

My parents died in their dysfunction.  There was a time, in their younger years, before dementia and old age, when they could have faced it, owned it, got healed, made amends.

But they didn’t. 

My heavenly Father is a good God and He gives us many opportunities to hear truth and respond to it, to let Him touch us and heal us and reform us, so we can move forward.

“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.  1 Peter 5:5,6

We all have that choice.   I challenged my parents at different times.   They didn’t listen.  

The timing of all that is interesting because I’m now in a situation where two people that I love dearly need to correct their ways, and stop hurting themselves and those under them.  

I have been dismissing my concerns, covering for them, second guessing my responses, ignoring red flags, keeping quiet to keep the ‘peace’. 

But I can’t keep doing it.  

It matters that they hear my perspective and get the opportunity to respond.

It matters for them.

It matters for me, even though I’m good at dismissing what I need.

It matters for those under them.

The Lord has been giving them warnings, prophetic pictures, and conversations, but nobody is listening.

People are pulling back or leaving, and they are blaming immaturity, hardness of heart and a lack of gratitude.  

They need to see their own part in it, and own it.   

My heart is breaking; people are hurting.

But His heart is breaking for His children, those who need a good covering, who need honesty, transparency, nurture and a safe place to be.  

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.  Psalm 92:12,13

This was my home when I was a teenager, but it wasn’t safe, it wasn’t cared for, and it wasn’t a place to flourish.  We were all surviving.    And one by one, we all left because it was simply not a good place to be.  

This is the same house now.   The new owners have taken ownership of it all – the good and the bad.   It’s tidier, cleaner, much more functional and generally safer.  

The new owners have cleaned up a lot of mess, and got rid of what was not serving the house or its inhabitants. 

We all get these opportunities to be renovated. 

We cannot ignore the mess, the dysfunction, the warnings.  

And His timing is crucial because one day the warnings run out, the grace period runs out. 

God’s love is unconditional but His grace is not. 

………..because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before Me, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” says the Lord.   2 Chronicles 34:27

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.  Prov 16:18,19

…………but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.    John 1:17

His grace needs to land on truth and humility.   

Humility is owning what it is and how it is and asking for His help to move toward wholeness.  

For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.

Today (timing), if you will hear His voice:

“Do not harden your hearts……………… 

You meet me in the mire
You meet me in the mud
You meet me when I'm broken and I'm giving up
I give You all my weakness and You raise me up
Oh, God of my restoration

POLITE DISHONESTY

When I saw the Five Minute Friday prompt word, POLITE, one phrase was running through my head:  

POLITE DISHONESTY

It’s rife in the church, in families, even Christian families.

Partly because we’re taught to be nice and polite.      

But Jesus wasn’t nice.  And He wasn’t polite.

He was genuinely kind.   He was gracious.   He was truthful.   He was honest.

He didn’t agree with things verbally that he disagreed with internally.

He didn’t go along with something to get along with someone. 

He asked questions that made people look at the truth behind behaviour and performance.

He was prepared to disappoint people to stay true to His identity and His Father’s purposes.

He offered grace, but always with the truth being spoken.   

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.   And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  John 8:31,32 

Jesus didn’t try to keep the peace.

He didn’t tell us to keep the peace.

He told us to be peacemakers, not peace keepers.

So many of us have learnt and decided to keep the peace by politely agreeing with the disagreeable, even when we know it’s wrong. 

A quote that helped me immensely a few years ago is this:   If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself. 

And so many of us do just that.  

Our polite dishonesty has created internal conflict, and external tension, and it certainly isn’t real peace.  

Polite dishonesty is not truthful.  And it doesn’t allow grace to operate, because grace cannot rest on lies.  

Polite dishonesty is based on lies.  

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.   1 John 1:8

For grace to be activated, truth has to be the starting point.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  1 John 1:9 

but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ……  Eph 4:15

Walking in real fellowship requires honesty – about ourselves to start with.   Honesty with Him.  And with each other.   That’s where growth happens.   And it’s often messy and uncomfortable and painful. 

But there’s grace for that.  

Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.  Ps 85:10 

Let not mercy and truth forsake you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart,

And so find favour and high esteem
In the sight of God and man.  Prov 3:3,4 

I’ve seen so much of this polite dishonesty in my own life, in the lives of family, friends, and acquaintances, Christian and otherwise.   In fact, I find non-Christians are often more honest about things because they’re not constrained by the notion of being ‘nice’. 

Polite dishonesty frustrates me because I can see how much damage it does, and how much it limits the growth of healthy relationships.

We don’t deal with what’s bugging us or hurting us in relationships.   So we withdraw, become distant, give up, give in, become apathetic, get cranky and resentful and touchy.   Sometimes we even keep performing to make it seem everything is fine, or because we don’t want to upset things or make people uncomfortable (or ourselves).  

When someone asks us, ‘Have I upset you, why are you distant, why are you cranky, are you okay with this decision or that outcome?  We say, ‘Nope, nope, it’s all good, I’m fine’   

When inwardly you’re not fine.   You’re not fine at all.  

And while you won’t address the problem with the person in question, you’re happy to whinge about it elsewhere.   Guilty as charged.

So, why do we do it?   How did we get so good at polite dishonesty?

Because we’re scared of them. 

Because we’re scared of losing someone.   

Because we don’t know what we believe.

Because we don’t want to appear difficult or touchy or divisive.    

Because we don’t want to change, or address our own issues.  

Because we value our reputation over honesty.

Because we don’t know what’s actually true, only what we’ve been told.

Because when something feels off, we have been conditioned to over function, blame ourselves, bury frustration, shrink our voice, adapt – again and again. 

Because of cultural training and obligation, and a skewed sense of responsibility. 

Because we’re not honest with ourselves, let alone anyone else. 

Because we don’t know who we are and what He has called us to.

Because we consider it too much to obey Him above keeping others happy. 

Because we overestimate someone’s authority in our lives and underestimate His.  

Fear of man is a snare

The fear of man brings a snare,
But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.    Prov 29:25

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.   2 Tim 1:7

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  Prov 9:10

So what’s the answer?

Years ago, I was speaking to a young pastor about an issue in his church, which I had become privy to, from the sidelines, because someone was whinging to me.    There was considerable tension between two members of his congregation, and there seemed to be one trouble-maker and one passive, ‘nice’ person who was at her wits end. 

The young pastor reminded me of the passages that speak to this:

Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.   Matt 18:15,16

So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.”  Luke 17:13

We need to go to someone who has harmed us, and caused us pain, and let them know.   And if they are willing to change, we can keep walking with them as a brother or sister.   If not, then we need to step back and realise that the connection is broken or is fairly shallow, and maybe they’re happy with that and we can live with that.   It’s good to accept the reality of someone’s capacity in a relationship and recognize the difference between expectation and reality.  

That’s okay if it’s someone you don’t see much or it’s a casual, occasional relationship.   It’s absolutely not okay if you’re in a covenant relationship with that person or they expect a deeper walk with you. 

And when we go to someone, we need to be ready and willing to hear their perspective on it and repent of where we have harmed them.    

Of course, we don't need to thrash out every annoyance in a relationship.    A lot needs to be let slide, but patterns of negative behaviour need addressing, not burying so they can fester. 

Real fellowship requires honesty.  If we want deep connection, then we need to be honest, not polite.   Walking in the light requires honesty and it requires repentance that leads to change, not just saying sorry.  

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.    If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.    But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.  1 John 1:5-7

Polite dishonesty is walking in the darkness.  

If words are not matching actions, then it’s time to get honest.   If our words (everything is fine) are not matching our actions (distant, cool, withdrawn, faking it) then something is off.   

And fellowship dies - slowly, but surely. 

And being polite when something is off is dishonest.  

We don’t need to analyse and scrutinize every aspect of our relationships and go digging for problems.   But we need to watch our speech – both the public, polite stuff and the private whinging. 

Preaching to myself here!  

Of course, nothing in our relationships is going to work if we’re not honest with ourselves and the Lord first.

That has to be our starting point. 

I love David Benner’s book, The Gift of Being Yourself, where he talks about the need to be honest with yourself first – then you can be honest with Him and then others. 

Are we willing to be peace makers, not peace keepers?   Are we willing to have the tough conversations so that we can be honest and transparent with each other, to take risks, to be vulnerable, to strengthen connections, instead of keeping a safe distance?

Are we willing to be pure in heart, or do we want to keep hiding and telling little lies in the name of being polite?  

Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.   Matt 5:8.9

 

I’ve shared this song before.   I think it speaks well to this issues.  

Let the truth be told!

 

 

"I'm fine, yeah, I'm fine, oh, I'm fine, hey, I'm fine"
But I'm not, I'm broken
And when it's out of control, I say "It's under control"
But it's not and You know it
I don't know why it's so hard to admit it
When being honest is the only way to fix it
There's no failure, no fall
There's no sin You don't already know
So let the truth be told