Relational Sanity Pt 3: Insecurity and Assumptions and Treachery… oh my!

I get one soda a week, and my Ginger Ale was not where I thought it should be. I was having kind of a trying day, and I almost reverted to my old ways by yelling upstairs, “Boys, which one of you took my soda!”

But I had that pause that Father has blessedly given me, that new found discretion. Yes, they are prone to taking my Ginger Ale, but I didn’t have any proof. The uncertainty of it was nagging at me, not knowing for sure if they did something they weren’t supposed to or if they were indeed innocent. My flesh wanted to accuse them, to get the upper hand, to find a semblance of control where I was currently uncertain. I was uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it, I was free-floating a river of unsurety. I hated being in that place, even over something small. But I decided to refrain from acting. I looked again, and I found the Ginger Ale in the place I actually put it, in the door, immediately grateful that I didn’t accuse, but still struggling with the stress brought on by the situation.

Welcome to the world of the control freak. Welcome to the domain of the insecure.

Me? Insecure? But I talk such a great game, I am bold and transparent, and I can seem so reasonable and self-assured. No, that is one of the masks of the insecure. Really, it is the most dangerous mask we can wear because it causes us to seem milder than we are. Behind the bravado lurks a person who is often very, very frightened of not being in absolute control over their surroundings, over how people perceive them, and over what people can pull over on them. We can seem to be thick skinned (although I have never been able to pull that one off), while in fact being very easily wounded. And the problem with very easily wounded people is the lengths we will preemptively go to in order to protect ourselves.

We are terrified of losing what is ours — we just don’t trust God enough to allow things to play out the way He wants them to. We are terrified of looking foolish if someone betrays us, so we attack them first – just in case. We anxiously dread what will happen in case of treachery, and so at the first hint of trouble, we accuse and go after the perceived threat. Or maybe we just cut them loose without a word.

With most of us, this happens on a small scale. Seeing something broken in the house, or having money missing from the wallet, or just something — and immediately jumping to conclusions, followed by accusations that are very rarely preceded by a diligent investigation. Yes, it falls under impatience, but even more so it is indiscreet behavior.

in·dis·creet — having, showing, or proceeding from too great a readiness to reveal things that should remain secret or private.

We all jump to conclusions in our head from time to time, but too many of us have not learned to bring it under control. Proverbs chapter 1 talks about discretion being something the young should seek out, and sadly, many adults never got any of it. Discretion isn’t only about revealing those embarrassing tidbits to the world, it is also about revealing our suspicions to the world when we have no real evidence. Frankly, the best time to accuse someone of betrayal is after the fact – not when they simply start making us uncomfortable. Better to look like someone who was taken advantage of than to become an accuser of the brethren.

With most of us, the damage we do is limited to our families – but what happens when we have a pulpit and a ministry?

A lot of us know exactly what happens.

When a minister is insecure, he/she is incredibly dangerous – especially when under stress. As long as an insecure person is being supported, propped up and agreed with they are the kindest people on earth and no one would think they could ever even harm a fly. But challenge them, even in private, even out of love and even when you don’t think you are even challenging them at all. Even if they only perceive a challenge to their ministry or their reputation or their discernment — watch the insecurity take control of them. Any character flaw that we do not overcome will overcome us according to the leeway we give it in our lives, especially according to the legitimacy we give that behavior as justified. That character flaw will overcome our discernment — causing injustice to seem like justice, cruelty to appear like mercy, flesh to masquerade righteousness. I know, because it has been my struggle.

On Sunday, as I reached for my Ginger Ale, I finally saw the answer to a question that has haunted me for years. “Why did two men who I loved, whose ministries I supported with my time and money and prayers, men who I never would have betrayed, men who were not only my congregational leaders but also close personal friends, turn on me so treacherously and so suddenly? Why did they react so violently and without a word to me? Why did they gather allies and marshal forces against me? Why, when I came to each privately about their ministries, meaning no harm but good, did they meet my love (and the trust I showed in coming to them) with such a vitriolic response?

Because their insecurities took over. Plain and simple. Despite having no physical nor historical reason to believe that I would do them harm (because I had only done them good), they became UNSURE as to whether or not I posed a threat to their ministry. Had they been calm and in control of themselves, they would have simply called me in order to clarify my intentions and assuage their fears. I had concerns, but did my concerns amount to an intent to betray? Not at all, as YHVH lives I loved these men and was committed to helping them, despite my concerns. Had their love for me been greater than their insecurity, they would have waited to see if I was going to betray them, they would have given me the chance to prove myself innocent through my actions over time. Had their trust in God been greater than their insecurity, they would have allowed Him to take care of the situation.

What did their insecurities do to me? Quite simply, their insecurity plus my immaturity made me into their sworn enemies. They took someone unwilling to betray and fashioned me into someone who really wished she had the ability to destroy them. It’s sad really – how our sin will provoke others to sin. No one sins in a vacuum. Our sins compromise those around us.

When I get angry and accuse my children without evidence, it shakes their confidence in me. I become the accuser and I stop being their mother. I have come to the conclusion that it is indeed better to risk betrayal, better to be tricked, better to trust and have that trust crushed, than to work proactively against those who may very well be innocent. Better to be betrayed a thousand times than to wrongly accuse without evidence even once.

The power of insecurity is in its ability to strip us of our reason in seconds. It strips us of our discernment, our love, our decency, our sense of justice, our very conscience. It speaks in terms of evil and we hear it as righteousness. Insecurity twists everything into unholiness, turns everything upside down. As long as we are actively insecure, we need no demons to prod us towards evil.

We need to learn discretion. We need to love people enough to give them time to prove our fears wrong. We need to trust God enough to let Him defend what is His. The only One who knows whether or not we will be betrayed in the future is Him, so we don’t have to fire the first volley in a war that might have never happened otherwise.

People may betray us….. but that’s their problem. If we betray them treacherously without cause because our minds are running wild… that’s most certainly our problem. Act discreetly and with righteousness and justice, and any betrayal you do face will work out for your good.

It gives me great peace to know now, that there was nothing I could have done to escape betrayal. Men and women blinded by insecurity are easily led astray by their fears. There are no guarantees that if I had approached either one of them differently that the outcome would have been different. I ceased to be Tyler, their beloved friend, and became an uncertainty in their lives. It was an uncertainty that they either were not willing, or able, to endure. I brought an unknown into the lives of those who needed control, and for whatever the reason that unknown was perceived as hostile. It isn’t my job to control the perceptions of others, nor is it within my ability. The battle between us happened because at some point they weren’t willing to take a chance on me, perhaps because they are not able to take a chance with anyone at all.

Putting Away Childish Things Pt 6: Love does not retaliate

If I was to name the most insidious and tolerated form of childish behavior in church leadership, it would be retaliation. Retaliation over big things, retaliation over small things, and yet in I Cor 13 we are admonished that “Love endures all.”

Over the last few years, I have been asked to take a place in a number of online ministries but each time I have said no for one main reason — I still have a problem being challenged, and until that is no longer the case, until it is safe for someone to oppose and attack me without my being tempted to retaliate, I am not willing to take on any form of leadership within the Body. Unfortunately, the desire to lead and the drive to be in charge has led too many immature people into positions where they had too much control over the lives of others. Too much responsibility was snatched up before they developed into what I see as the embodiment of “enduring love.”

Enduring love – Love that is able to endure real and perceived threats to ones own self without succumbing to the temptation to retaliate, to lash out, or to destroy – either openly or in secret or through a combination of the two.

Enduring love is difficult. Enduring love, at the shallowest level, requires that we learn to deal with people’s quirks in a patient, compassionate way. At the highest level it requires a person to be so dead to their flesh that they can go to their own deaths silently while genuinely praying for those leading them to the gallows.

I have been a believer for almost 16 years now, and I have seen the leadership defy the call to this sort of love too many times — oftentimes with the full support of their flocks. Some preachers are actually so volatile that they will lash out violently as soon as they even think they are being disagreed with. Others will quietly listen to someone privately relate their disagreement before telling them why it will not be tolerated, and sometimes even punishing them privately as a deterrent against ever voicing their misgivings again. There are those who will listen in private, thank the person for coming to them with their concerns, and then go straight to the phone, internet and pulpit to retaliate against an “anonymous attacker.” To be honest, I am not nearly as concerned with the first two, because they are far more honest – and when confronted with that sort of person we are always able to just get up and leave once we have seen the person for what they are. But the third situation is so widespread — and more disturbingly, it is tolerated and even enjoyed by the congregation. It is one thing to be slammed privately by a person, quite another thing when they are given approval by your own brothers and sisters.

Retaliation from leadership creates an infectious atmosphere. How do you tell your flock not to retaliate, when your ministry is built upon it? How do you put an end to the infighting and stop the implosion of your ministry when you are doing from the pulpit and your office what the troublemakers in the church always resort to? Demonizing those who disagree while gathering allies. And more importantly, why do we as a Body tolerate it so easily? Disturbingly, why do so many of us enjoy hearing “those people” get preached about from the pulpit? Why doesn’t the gossip bother us? Why doesn’t the betrayal distress us enough to say, “No more!” Why do we assume that anyone deserves to be blasted from the pulpit? When was the last time someone rose up and asked, “Are they in rebellion to God, have you gone to them with witnesses present before presenting this to us? Where are your witnesses? Where is your evidence?”

The leadership sets the tone for the Body, and for how the Body will behave. I don’t like that it’s true, but it is true nonetheless. We should be following Messiah and doing as He did. We should be able to stand quietly as our enemies spit in our face, and some of us do — only to resort to spitting in their face publicly later on, on a much grander scale.

But love endures. Love endures all, without lashing out in a deceptive manner. Just because we don’t name the person who did something to us, doesn’t make our public attack of them any better — it just makes it more difficult for them to set the record straight if we have been misinformed or straight out dishonest. Too much of the leadership and loyalty in the Body of Messiah is maintained through treachery. And perhaps maybe when we see it, it is just easier to assume that the person being treacherous is actually justified, and that their behavior is not really fleshy but righteous. But when I see a person in the pulpit making unprovable accusations, waging an anonymous war, or when I get a call from someone telling me how dangerous someone in their flock is – I have a choice to make. I can tolerate it, or I can refuse to tolerate it. Over the past 16 years, I have tried to become more diligent about spotting the warning signs and walking away. I won’t pay someone to preach against others from the pulpit – and I don’t need their teachings that badly. No one is interesting enough for me to sit by quietly while the character of my King is being misrepresented.

People who grew up in dysfunctional households often talk about how their mindsets were warped by the adamant belief that the abuser in the house must be protected and coddled at all costs. It is a trained behavior, to placate and make the path straight for the very person whose volatility is destroying the path for others. Part of leaving that abuse mindset is the realization that it is the victims of the abuser that need protected, and that it was never logical to protect the person whose behavior was abusive. Little children were not created for the purpose of protecting their parents, the flock does not exist to take care of the shepherd, and the Body does not exist to take care of the leadership. Those who would be greatest must do so from a position of service, not from an attitude of entitlement, or with the expectation of being treated with kid gloves. The early church leadership was sometimes persecuted by those on the inside, and killed by those on the outside. That has to be the expectation of leadership – not the fear which drives it into worldly abusive tactics.

We are not called to survival or to the growth of our ministry, we are called to love. Love God. Love our neighbors. Love endures. We need to make sure that we understand this before we stand behind a pulpit, even if mature behavior has never been modeled for us by anyone other than Yeshua and the apostles. Love requires a paradigm shift. Once we are on the “top” our egos must take the lowest place at the table. Retaliation has no place in the Body of Messiah.

Putting Away the Childish Things Pt 5: If I Was Patient…..

If I was patient…

…the lives of everyone around me would change. People would be more inclined to smile when they saw me, instead of pausing to check for signs of my mood.

…people would not hesitate to share their most intense burdens with me, because they would know that I was listening to them and not thinking about how to get out of the conversation.

…then my kids wouldn’t wonder whether or not this is the best time to ask me questions about whatever is on their mind.

…I would stop and think before reacting.

…I would realize that anger rarely changes a situation for the better.

…I would pause and remember all the times that my first impression was dead wrong – even those ones I swore were “spirit led.”

…I would not have as much cause for regret.

…I would stop wondering why people don’t understand what I am telling them, and simply accept that they do not understand – without judgment.

…I could accept it when people do good things differently than I do.

…I would stop stressing out about how perfect I am not at this moment, and would realize that God has plans for my future, not just for my now.

…I would be more comfortable with lagging behind the knowledge seekers, in order to spend time learning to love.

…I would gladly spend time cultivating good fruit, knowing that fruit is more readily shared than knowledge.

…I would always stop and think, “What is it that I am planning on doing? If I never see this person again, do I want our association to end this way?”

I think that, at its core, patience is the antithesis of the “childish things” of I Cor 13. Being patient is the opposite of being impulsive.

When I am impulsive, I am often unkind, because I haven’t paused long enough to consider the consequences of my words and actions. I envy — because I haven’t taken enough time to consider what I have and what things the person who I envy lacks. I boast, generally because when I am impulsive I am generally self-centered in my thoughts. I get angry at the drop of a hat, and in my anger I fail to protect, I do not care to hope or trust, and I have already given up on moving forward.

I get impulsive when I get resentful of having to wait. I want to lean on my own understandings. I want to be justified. I want to trust my judgment. I don’t want to take the time to consider how easily led by the flesh I am.

It is an easy thing, to claim that we want patience, but what most of us really want is perfect instantaneous discernment — and we want it so badly that we just ignore all evidence to the contrary. Developing patience is painful because day by day, when we wait, we have to face the fact that the first thing that popped into our heads to say or do was foolish, or even evil. Easier to just do the evil thing and write it off as the fault of the other person who provoked us, than to stop and weigh ourselves in the balance, carefully analyzing what our knee jerk reactions reveal about our character. The cultivation of patience is excruciating. We must constantly face who we truly are in the heat of the moment and must often find it unacceptable.

Patience isn’t for people who want to see themselves as being justified and excused. Patience is for those people who are sick and tired of watching others be hurt because our actions are both unjustified and without excuse.

Patience isn’t for sissies.

Putting Away Childish Things Pt 4 — Love does not boast.

I have always wondered how to really interpret “love does not boast” correctly. Yes, boasters and braggers are tedious and annoying, but are they really unloving? Is that all that is being communicated here?

I Cor 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

I have been thinking about this verse a lot over the last two weeks, and it finally came to me, the connection between it and the admonition against boasting a few verses earlier. And it came to me while watching a facebook thread directed against the mother of a special needs child with profound disabilities after she was honest about how she feels sometimes.

“She’s selfish.”

“Not a real mom.”

“If I were that boy’s mom I would….”

And there it was — the “If I… then I would” statement that most of us don’t even see as boasting. Neither did I, long ago, and I used to do it all the time until God taught me one night not to. Here’s what happened. We had just bought our new house from a family who had a lot of relatives in town and some of the relatives had keys. Mark got called in late to work one night (we lived a few minutes away from the plant) and when I heard the key in the garage door I went to open it for him. But it wasn’t him, it was a man who looked like a mountain, and there I was in my pajamas and despite all my years of boastfully talking about how if anyone broke into my house I would shoot them dead, I stood there paralyzed in front of him. I could not speak, I could not move. He could have killed me in a heartbeat, but fortunately he was frozen in fear as well. He didn’t know that his relatives were already gone to the new house. He was as mortified as I was terrified.

Afterwards, I was laying in bed thinking about all my years of boasting about what I would do if I was in that situation, and I realized very clearly that until we are in that exact same position, that we don’t have the slightest clue what the heck we would do. And furthermore, unless we have walked the exact same path as the person who finds themselves in whatever situation, we cannot say what we would or would not do “if we were them.” It comes down to exalting ourselves, and dishonoring others. Assuming the best of ourselves, and giving no credit to others. It’s childish and it is unloving. And frankly, it’s just easier than showing compassion and mercy.

Here’s another one — my kids were 6 and I was driving them from New Mexico to California for a Disneyland trip. We stopped at the Grand Canyon. Now I am terrified of heights but I always assumed that I could overcome any fear to save my beloved sons. They ran, RAN, to the edge of the canyon. My legs were frozen in place, I could not force myself to go get them. They were standing there, inches from death while I was unable to move towards them. The looks of judgment from the other tourists were burning in to my flesh, but my legs would not move. Fortunately a very nice couple went and retrieved them for me. I learned that day that primal fear changes everything! It even overcomes maternal instincts. But then another time, I ran into a bee swarm to save Andrew. We just never know.

We watch movies and we call someone an idiot for being frozen in place, or making the wrong snap judgment, or for panicking. We judge politicians and say what we would have done, all in hindsight of course, thinking we have all the information as we sit at home unwilling to even take on that kind of responsibility. We say what we would or wouldn’t do, but it all amounts to wishful thinking. What would I have done if I were on the football field? They key in all of this is the pronoun “I.” I, I, I, I … “please listen to me draw attention to my virtues, my excellent discernment, my wisdom and intelligence and infallibility.”

Boasting — it isn’t just about telling people how great we are and about what we have done, it’s about telling people how great we would be in a challenging situation. It’s about assuming the best about ourselves when we are absolutely untried. It’s about pinning on war medals when we haven’t even been in battle yet. It’s about making everyone who fails — well, it’s about putting them beneath our feet. It’s about disassociating ourselves from the failures and vulnerabilities of others and attaching to ourselves success and infallibility.

Can I be honest here?

If I came out of Egypt and was out in the desert with no food and water, I would complain too. If I was Peter, I probably would have looked at the wind and waves too (or stayed with the others in the boat), and I would have ran from the Temple guards. And I might have denied my Master there in the courtyard. And I would have probably joined Thomas in doubting. And I would have been bickering with the other disciples about who would be first in the Kingdom. I would have done a lot of things that I would not be proud of afterwards.

I might say, “I hope I would have done such and such…” but I don’t know for certain. And that admission helps me be compassionate. It’s a pride killer, a humbling thing to just admit that I don’t know what the heck I would do in a million different situations I have never been in. I am often weak, I am not always wise, I am not always kind or merciful, and sometimes I lack all discretion.

So what would I do if I were you, in your situation? I don’t know. I hope I would do right, but considering the fact that I don’t even always do right in my own life – how dare I even speculate?

Putting Away Childish Things Pt 3: The difference between being childish and being malicious

Intentions are vital — they may not necessarily be important to the people whom we are hurting with our childish behavior, but they are key in whether we will be willing to remain how we are or desire to change.

Childish behavior is called childish for a reason. Children aren’t generally malicious when they are very small, they are simply clueless and lack empathy and self-awareness. And there is the difference between the malicious adult and the childish adult — are they aware of the big picture and if they are, do they care?There are, of course, people who are so severely damaged or mentally deranged that they lack the capacity to care and I will not address them here, as this is specifically written for people who care about how their behavior affects others. It would hardly do me any good on a blog like this to reach out to people who have no desire to change what they are doing. It would be more productive to try and destroy my own house by beating my head against it.

If you read the chapter in my book about The Rebellious House-guest, then you already understand the difference between being rebellious and being malicious. You can be a genuinely sweet and funny person and still have no desire to be ruled over. Same thing with childish behavior, you can be childish and still be what the world would call a decent person. But what is our goal? Is it to be acceptable by the world’s standards, or do we want the character of our King?

Is it enough to be decent and nice enough and funny and smart? Or does our childish impatience really offend us? Are we sick of being so easily angered, and flying off the handle with our families behind closed doors? Are we tired of hearing ourselves go on and on about our virtues and righteousness yet? Are we daily wishing that we weren’t so incredibly childish still in so many ways, and so good at it that we can do it without even trying?

Children don’t try to be childish. They aren’t childish because they are malicious, they are childish because we were naturally born with a great lack of character which they make better or worse by emulating or rejecting the behavior they see around them — from their parents, their friends, what’s on the television, etc. If all things are optimal, these character flaws will be rooted out by the time we reach adulthood, through training and experience. But life isn’t optimal, and optimal isn’t the same as idyllic. There are many childish flaws that will not be uncovered by what we would call a perfect life. How do you know how to respond to death maturely if your life was so perfect that it never came up? How do you respond to temptation maturely if you were never allowed to face it? You see, there is no perfection to be had through an easy life — and our unrefined childishness will quietly haunt us until revealed through circumstance. An optimal life gives us the good and bad over time and allows us to adapt and if we have good examples, to grow up. We cannot guarantee a mature response to a circumstance we have never faced.

And so I hope you see that childishness should not be seen as an insult, it should be seen as an opportunity to grow up. As children, wasn’t that what we wanted? To grow up?

So much evil out there, so many of the things that drive us crazy about other people and so many of the things that drive us crazy about ourselves — there is nothing malicious about it. It’s simply someone being childish. It is someone acting in a way that seems perfectly reasonable to them, and they think that everyone who takes issue with it has the problem. But I’m not talking to them, I am talking to the people who care to read this.

Do we want to be childish, or are we sick to death of it? Have we had enough of people thinking that we are purposefully being jerks when in fact we are simply childish and oftentimes acting and responding as children do, without thinking? Children act according to their instincts, largely without thinking things through. You want to know why patience is listed first in the I Cor 13 admonitions about what love is and isn’t? Simply put, because the primary difference between adult and childish behavior is developing the patience to think the situation through before acting. Patience before we get angry, patience before we start that list of grievances, patience before we make that cruel remark, patience to contemplate our shortcomings before we start bragging, patience to consider what we have before we start being envious, patience enough to cover, endure, wait and hope. Children have no patience, it must be learned. And if we missed it the first time around, we need to start doing it now.