How do we deal with individuals, organizations, or even a larger culture where either we personally or our values are attacked or diminished?
Do we take the approach of the old adage, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me”? We build boundaries substantial enough that keep us from experiencing that discomfort again. Or do they really? Is that diminishing still being mulled over in our thoughts and body, such that we are bound to it, linked to it by our own vigilance?
How we respond to threats to ourselves or others has its origins in our personalities, family of origin, and life training as students and through adulthood. Ultimately, we choose how we respond to negatives. Proactively or reactively.
My preference is to stay…in the relationship, in the job or organization. I want to make things work…improve things from the inside out. Be tenacious. Figure it out. Give grace. Push in for a place at the table and make room for others there.
We live in a reactive space in history. Or maybe it’s always been that way, but now, the reactions are broadcast multiple ways through various media, both sympathetic and unsympathetic to our side or that of the other.
It is exhausting.
In a Slideserve on classroom management, the familiar elements of reactive response are outlined. When trouble is brewing, we do what we can to 1) expose and remove the perpetrator, 2) remove ourselves, 3) change up the environment to relieve discomfort, and/or 4) assign blame outside ourselves.
To move from being reactive to become more proactive, we must stay in the conversation. We determine how best to go forward. We listen with a desire for understanding and not just the goal of being right.
While downsizing our extensive book library this weekend, I rediscovered this little treasure of a book
and found this quote apropos to today’s topic:
Abraham Lincoln was one who listened to the Different Drummer, and not to the vindictive voices of his advisers.
Stephens, Phillips and Beecher were among Lincoln’s contemporaries who were echoing the cry, “Crush the South…Stamp out the whole slave-holding aristocracy…Make them pay to the last acre of land, the last vestige of power, the last drop of blood.”
But the great man upon whose furrowed brow the responsibility rested heard a Different Drummer… “With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” – From the late US Senate chaplain and Scotsman Peter Marshall‘s His Hand On Your Shoulder
The paragraph above shows the contrast between the reactive, vengeful response and the more proactive, hopeful and potentially healing response.
The Southern Baptist Convention has its annual meeting later this month. Now for many of you, this is inconsequential. However, in anticipation of this meeting, and throughout the proceedings, Twitter and other social media platforms are and will be abuzz with the reactors. Those who would not wish these folk well. Those who may have been hurt in the past by this enormous cooperative of churches. Those who love a good wrangle especially when it potentially brings down Christians or sullies the name of Jesus.
Just last night, an out-of-state friend and I had a deep conversation on this topic (ok…via texts…so much meaning in short bursts). Her longing was to see Southern Baptists keep focused on the essentials of the church’s mission and not to allow the non-essentials divide us and cancel what matters most.
Whatever our challenge is this morning – whether a troubled work situation, a broken relationship, or an affiliation with an imperfect organization – we can choose a better way forward.
We can choose not to lash out or quit. We can choose to seek change from within. We can operate out of humility, hope, faith, or even love. We can resist a reactive response.
The Lord asked him [Moses], “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
“Throw it on the ground,” he said. So Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it. The Lord told Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.”
So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.
“This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” – Exodus 4:3-5
The life of Moses inspires us all. He definitely had seasons when he must have felt side-lined…looking out the palace windows with no royal way to help the Israelite slaves; then 40 years tending sheep on the far side of nowhere; and finally after leading God’s people through the wilderness to the Promised Land, dying without entering himself.
Who sidelines us? What exactly sidelines us? Too often we are our own limiting factor…we put ourselves on the bench.
Is God not still at work in our lives…through every season?
Earlier this week, I was lamenting (maybe even whining) to a friend about something that gets to me from time to time. That feeling of being sidelined…after a lifetime of great productivity and unmerited influence. What is it, I asked her (or maybe God), about this season that is so hard? That feeling of being place-less, ministry-less. Surely it’s not my age or gender…or is it? Is there no more fruitfulness to look forward to this side of Heaven?
Can I execute bountiful pity parties or what?!
Then even in this talk with my friend, God’s sweet truth broke through. Dr. Curt Thompson is spot on when he talks about how we can come “to our senses” just in the simple experience of being seen…being known by a trusted friend. At the end of that conversation, as we prayed, the tears flowed (which is rare for me), and God reminded me of His own goodness and good purposes – and while I had breath, nothing was about to thwart what He was doing in and through me…in and through all of us.
Just in the course of a few hours after that conversation, the Lord worked His grace in my heart, and I’m back in the life He has so generously given me.
5 lessons God taught me…again:
Let go of the past. – We can romanticize and pedestalize previous seasons of our life and work. We look back over the plow (Luke 9:62) and long for other days. This is the field. This is the day where He has us now. I don’t want to miss what He has for my life today because my thoughts are languishing, settled in the distant past. We don’t forget the past, but we remember it, glorifying God, not glorying in our own supposed “usefulness”. Sigh…
Check your heart. – Anytime a spirit of complaining clouds our thinking, it is a good reminder to see what’s going on in our hearts. Am I feeling unseen, unappreciated, under-utilized? [So what?! If that happens then we’re completely free to listen more closely to how God is directing.] Arm-chair quarterbacking is not a good look for any of us. I remember my mom was a treasure to the young pastors she had through the years. In fact, three of them preached her funeral…with others in the room, with the same testimony. They talked of how she loved them, spoke truth to them, and prayed over them faithfully. In her own quiet life, growing older…closer to God. The Lord got hold of me the other day in this area. So thankful for His love and care…and forgiveness.
Watch for the new thing. – God is always with us and at work in us. He may take us down familiar, well-worn paths (those we get caught up longing for), but He also chooses to stretch our faith and build our capacity for loving Him and loving others. Not necessarily in grand and glorious ways, but in small and subtle ways where we have the opportunity to decrease while He increases. Whew! Watching for it.
Will there be barriers? Always. The thing we should have learned from previous seasons of life and work is that God is our over-comer. More often than not, we find the battle belongs to God; all we have to do is stand. We forget that sometimes. We stare at the barriers (fashioning them, at times, to look like our own brothers and sisters in Christ), and fume about them…forgetting that our battle is NOT against flesh and blood…nor is it really our battle. [There’s a very short story that comes to mind about how we’re called to push against what seems an impossible weight…but God* (see below, worth the read). Compared to the person and presence of God, all seeming barriers are small.
Eyes on God – The most beautiful reminder out of this pity party of mine is that setting our eyes on God changes everything. If He means for me to finish in this life’s “Promised Land” or, like Moses, looking down into it but not quite arriving…it is His to make happen and for me to follow. The Scriptures do not record Moses grumbling about not getting to enter with all those he led… I think the reason it’s not recorded is that it didn’t happen. For Moses, being with God was enough. More than enough. Period. Full stop. Eyes on God.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. – Colossians 3:1-4
OK…so Moses…he may have felt sidelined…and except for the years in Pharaoh’s palace, he did the sidelining to himself. God, however, did not let him stay on the bench. Singer songwriter Ken Medema wrote and performed an incredible account of Moses’ early encounter with God (the verses above,Exodus 4:3-5).
Worship with me, or listen to this amazing and revealing story of God…and His servant Moses. [In the video, you may notice Ken Medema is blind…but in his heart, he can see and sing God so clearly!].
“Do you know what it means, Moses?
Do you know what I’m trying to say, Moses?
The rod of Moses became the rod of God!
With the rod of God, strike the rock and the water will come;
With the rod of God, part the waters of the sea;
With the rod of God, you can strike old Pharaoh dead;
With the rod of God, you can set the people free.”
What do you hold in your hand today? To what or to whom are you bound? Are you willing to give it to God right now? Give it up, let it go, throw it down. – Ken Medema
Thanks for joining me today. Do you ever struggle in this area? Maybe you don’t…yet. Maybe you do. Would love for you to share some of your own insight on how God redeemed that season for you.
Prayerfully…
What do you hold in your hand today? To what or to whom are you bound? Are you willing to give it to God right now? Give it up, let it go, throw it down.– from Moses by Ken Medema
The past. We are never rid of it, nor would we wish to be. Our roots are there. The foundation of our lives. Our first and formative relationships are there. Both life and death, pain and promise.
Memories are born in the past. Experiences and emotions attached to them that feel exquisitely personal…yet are shared. Others close to us may have our exact same experiences, but have very different feelings and memories attached to them.
Family is complicated and always has been (remember Cain and Abel?). Throughout the history of humankind, family was meant to be a nurturing and stabilizing influence in our lives. It doesn’t always work out that way, but wisdom is to lean in whenever possible and learn both from the brokenness and the beauty available to us.
So how do we deal with the past? Do we ruminate on the wrongs of our past? Do they loom larger than the good? Do we see ourselves in the right in each point of conflict? Or the victim? Is our memory of family colored in ways that make us pull away?
There is a way forward, and I believe it is revisiting the past with the aim of healing…not just for ourselves but for the family as a whole.
[I love alliteration – words with the same beginning letters used in phrases or headings. So it was a personal thrill for me that this came together with alliteration.]
5 R’s of Handling and Healing Our Past
1) Remember – We trust our memories, don’t we? Well, until age shakes that up a bit. Still, our memories can be altered by the power of our emotions and by further experiences that call the past to mind. Then our emotions, deepened by memory, can “resolve” to see things more our way, whatever is happening in the moment. Memories can be reinforced, and not always in helpful ways. We need to take into account that we, family members or friends, can remember something very differently, based on what was going on emotionally for each person at the time. That’s why we must handle memories gently with each other. Love the person her/himself more than what they might remember. Determine not to be put off by memories where we don’t come off in a positive light. Remembering is done best in community. It’s richer and more reliable that way. Of course, this requires tons of trust, transparency, and humility. It may not feel safe in some situations to remember in community. It’s also never helpful to insist our memories are the only ones that are true. Right? Again, it is experience plus emotion. Love covers. Love helps heal when we remember, with care for the other.
2) Reminisce – As we remember, we reminisce. This calls to mind the sweet memories of the past. Even as painful memories rush in, what happy times come to mind? How might these memories weave together? Was it all bad? All good? Reminiscing taps into the positives, and even opens the mind to what the memories of the other might be in the same experience. Are we projecting motive or intent into our experience? As we reminisce, might we look at how an experience was different for the other. Reminiscing done in community is, again, eye-opening. It can be threatening if our side of the memory is on the line, but when we enlarge on what was going on in our past, we gain deeper understanding. A softening of our attitudes can come.
3) Reflect – When we reflect on a particular situation or relationship in the past, we treat it with as much grace as we can muster. We take the past and turn it over and examine it from different angles, considering what we can learn from it. How is it affecting our present – both life experience and relationships? What can we do to glean something positive from a painful past? What is to be gained by holding onto the past? If we choose healing, what is then possible for us and the others involved? What kind of faith would be required? What kind of work? Are we willing?
4) Repent and Reconcile when possible(instead of forever Regret ) – Here’s the big leap! Owning our part and doing something about it. This is huge!
Let’s say, our past includes painful memories from our early childhood. What can a child own from situations out of their control? We can own our attitudes today as adults. For instance, it took me a long time to tender my memories of a neglectful biological father. I only have a few memories of him, none great. One memory stands out. Mom had left him, and we were living in a tiny house, supported by her income alone. One night we were awakened by shouting. I don’t remember a lot, but my estranged father, Mom, and an uncle of ours were in some sort of argument. We four children were huddled together on a bottom bunk. I remember blood and our father’s hand wrapped in a handkerchief. Was there a knife? I don’t remember. We were terrified. After that…he was pretty much absent from our lives. I don’t remember asking Mom what all happened. It just took me a long time to feel anything for that dad. Yet, I know he had to have known pain, isolation, and maybe even some regret at the dregs of his relationship with Mom and us. As an adult, I have chosen some compassion for him. Not much but some.
Why did I share that story? It is how as children, when we have trauma (or what we perceive as trauma when maybe it had little to do with us), we process it differently than we might as adults. Revisiting, with humble hearts, can make a difference in how we think about the past as adults.
When our past pushes into our present, and conflicts are revisited, we are tempted to try the offending party in the court of our emotions (re-try them, actually). We resurrect the past and all its emotions, and bring all that trauma to bear on whatever the present misunderstanding is. We are then not able to just deal with the present. All that past comes down on us, that past that may have been once forgiven, and unloads. Making it virtually impossible to deal with whatever is happening at the moment.
This is where we repent. We refuse to nurse old wounds. We deal with the current conflict as it is, without all the past. The current conflict is enough. We deal with it as adults. We repent of our part. I can tell you, if we don’t, there is collateral damage to those who love us. “Friendly fire” is not friendly, and these struggles, heightened by our past, become the past of those around us. Our children. Our grandchildren.
Repentance may take more the form of forgiveness. We refuse to remember (one place where we refuse to remember) the offense of another. We choose to forgive in the most expansive way we can.
I know we sometimes say we forgive that one who offends us, who offended in the past, and continues to do so. We forgive but commit and feel justified to have nothing to do with them ever again. I get that. I get the pain behind such a decision. It’s heart-breaking. Just to reflect: Who does that punish? As wide a circle as our relationship together makes. We are all punished…that is most probably not meant to be the intent.
Repent and reconcile whenever possible. There will be cheering by everyone who loves us both. I know; I’ve experienced it from both sides. The repenting side and the relieved and thankful other side.
[This is often excruciating and not always satisfying. Even if the outcomes are not what we hope. We benefit from trying…as do the generations that follow. Who knows? The situation – and relationship – can still change in that possible future.]
5) Rejoice – Put your hand on your chest. Can you feel your heart beating? Can you feel the rise and fall of your breath? Be grateful. Rejoice in the present. We didn’t die from our past. We still have a chance to put things right. Maybe imperfectly…but it’s possible.
A wonderful scene of this possibility is found in the 1970 film “Scrooge”. “I’ll Begin Again”.
The past doesn’t have to be forever. You have a present. There may be a future…one not framed by the hurting past but built on a healed past. We have that possibility…in our present. We can do our part… it’s the only thing we have in our control. Is it complicated? Of course, but it will always be worth the effort.
*Special thanks to my writer friend, Angela at Living Well Journal, who talked and prayed through this with me…on a neighborhood walk, in the cool of a Spring morning.
A note I found just this week flipping through an old Bible. Mom would leave love notes around whenever she came to visit, and we did the same after her pattern…and taught our children to do the same.
