A few years ago I read a story by Max Lucado that posed a riddle to illuminate a truth. The riddle went like this:

 

  “You’re glad I came when I’m gone, but you wish I’d leave when I’m there. It hurts when I help. I stretch when I strengthen.

         Who am I?”

 

You may already have guessed the answer. It took me awhile. I have never been very good at riddles and I needed to read the entire story illustration before I recognized the truth in this riddle.

 

The answer? Growth.

 

In one moment we can say we want to grow, but in another we strain against growth because early in our lives we begin to understand that growth can be painful in many different ways. In childhood we might complain of our legs hurting and be told that it is just “growing pains”. That usually means little to us. We also might be told when we are acting in childish ways that we need to “grow up”.

 

We know growth is important and a necessary part of life, but what makes it difficult for us, even painful? What can cause us to resist it?

 

Perhaps we resist growth because it means change and even though we might casually say we are looking forward to a change or we need a change, change is rarely easy for us even though it is one of life’s constants.

 

Change pushes us out of our comfort zones that may cajole us to believe we have some measure of control. Change requires us to learn something new or to adapt or to give up something we like or have grown accustomed to in our lives.

 

Changes require us to not only do things differently, but also to think about things differently, to get a new perspective, to change the lens that we have been accustomed to and know so well.

 

Change is rarely easy.

 

That is especially true when it involves something inside of us that needs to be adjusted.

 

Change produces challenges.

 

Those challenges can come on more than one level at a time. We can be most acutely aware of that when we experience a significant loss such as loss in our own health, loss of a job, loss of someone we love, or loss of a home. Subtler changes of loss include aging, transitioning to a new position in our jobs, returning to school each fall. These subtle losses are ones we expect will happen at certain seasons, but the shift within us still poses challenges.

 

Challenges that we set for ourselves might be more acceptable, but challenges that we did not choose or cannot control test our metal. They can cause us to doubt our abilities, our experience, our understandings, our endurance, our strength, our faith, and us, but that seems to be what the Lord most often uses to develop greater levels of trust. It is precisely in these situations where we cannot move forward unless we do trust to a greater degree. It pushes us to trust in the One greater than us, to lean into and onto Him more heavily, and to believe His faithfulness to us with more certainty.

 

And what does that process produce? It produces growth.

 

We can celebrate growth when the process has ended, the pain of it has subsided, but that growth and its rewards have a purpose we may not see. The purpose? That growth so fresh and new will equip us for the next change, the next challenge, and the next growth spurt ahead. The process is a key component of the Lord’s love for us.

 

How?

 

He does so by helping us to trust Him more as He equips us for the path ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

For the past two weeks I have been writing about approaching differences relationally as a way to begin to chip away at the divisions we seem to be experiencing in so many areas. When I read the new book, Unified, by Tim Scott and Trey Gowdy, it spurred me on with a framework to write about that has been something I had been mulling over for some time.

 

If you have been with me since the beginning of this series (April 18), you have read more about my personal background that shaped my experiences and value for seeing the individual before I see the group.

 

Today I want to share a few more quotes from the book and some final thoughts as I bring this series to a close. You see I hadn’t planned to write a series, but I feel passionately about relationships and how we (especially as believers) handle them.

 

The old adage about sticks and stones and words not hurting us isn’t quite what happens most of the time. Words matter. They also can and do hurt. I think they hurt the most when those words do not match the actions of the one who speaks them.

 

Research shows when words and actions don’t match, we tend to believe the actions because they most often reveal what is in our hearts and happen almost automatically.

 

As I have watched the widening gap between so many of us increase on individual, organizational, and national levels, some have put forth programs and workshops to try to change the trajectory we are on. But I am not sure I see many results from them. That’s why Tim Scott’s next quote resonated so much with me:

 

“If we really want to make a difference, let’s have a conversation – just you and me. Let’s not talk about the weight of the world or the weight of the past, but let’s talk about where we are right now. Let’s start with a clean slate; let’s assume the best of each other and expect the best of each other. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt. Let’s build our rapport and establish credibility and trust with each other, and then we can share what we’ve learned, and share our victories with others who can then do the same.”

 

 One reason the book’s message resonates is because it matches what the Lord has already outlined we are to be like in the world anyway. Somehow even as Christians we have too often failed in that area. Too often the body of Christ operates in silos based on denomination, some aspect of doctrine, tradition, or ethnicity. Those differences are real, but I think we have forgotten that we also have a significant core group of beliefs that we all agree with and that’s a great place to start.

 

We saw that demonstrated in Charleston, SC, with the tragedy at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The members of the body welcomed a stranger into their midst who was different from them in more ways than they knew. When he opened fire in his murderous shooting rampage as well as afterward, they forgave in ways that stand as a memorial and testament to the character of the church and the city of Charlestown. It should have provoked us all.

 

The people of that church and city evidenced what was inside them in their hearts, spirits, and character before and after this tragedy.

 

If we continue to focus on all the ways we are different, stay polarized and focus on our anger, resentment, and fear, nothing will change and what comes up in a crisis will look very different than Charleston’s example.

 

One of my favorite quotes from Unified is this one:

 

“When you begin to look at people as individuals, when you listen to what they say and seek to understand where they’re coming from, you begin to realize we’re all different from the rest.”

 

God created each one of us as a “one-of-a-kind” individual. Perhaps He knew it would require us to depend on Him to relate to and love one another as a result.

 

I love you best when I get to know you first. That means commitment and intentionality. It means realizing for as much as I may think I know about you or anyone, there is far more that I don’t know – even if I have known you for some time.

 

Let me close with this quote written by Trey Gowdy:

 

“We live in a world that prioritizes diversity over unity, but let’s stop for a moment to recognize that these terms are not mutually exclusive. We can be unified within our diversity. We can allow our diversity to bring wisdom, texture, and depth to our unity. We have so much in common, and I don’t know why we don’t spend at least as much time talking about our commonality as we do our differences.”

 

 And this one by Tim Scott:

 

 “True friendship is born out of unconditional love and acceptance. The Bible is very clear that love is not simply an emotion; it is deliberate commitment. Love and acceptance are not situational. They’re not contingent. They are consistent. I’m very optimistic about our future, but if we’re going to change the world, it’s going to happen one relationship at a time. It’s going to happen by all of us enlarging our comfort zones to make room for unlikely friendships – friendships with people who, at first glance, it may appear we have little in common with. But just as love is unconditional, it is also intentional. We must decide to look beyond our differences to build bridges of commonality. Pursuing unlikely friendships will require us to do things that seem uncomfortable at first. But what’s hard gets easier, and if we’ll do the hard things first, we will soon reap the benefits.”

 

 Here’s to doing the hard things first!

 

 

 

Life gets crazy and busy. We get tired and frustrated, disappointed and upended. In the midst of all that and more, we intend to do and be so many things…often very good things…but that does not always occur. Life is like that. Things happen that we do not intend.

We hear that when Galadriel speaks a prologue in The Lord of the Rings about the famous ring of power that had upended so many and turned the world back into darkness. She tells the audience:

 “But then something happened that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable. A Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire. For the time will soon come when Hobbits will shape the fortunes of all…”

 

And so it is that things happen in life that we may not intend. How often any one of us can be heard commenting, “But I didn’t intend to…”  (Fill in the blank). Many times it is true because we did not intend or plan to hurt, harm, or disappoint someone, but in our hurried thoughtlessness we did. Sometimes that comment is also a “too ready” excuse that slips from our mouths without much thought to what our words or actions were or the consequences of them.

The truth is that no matter what our intent may be or may have been, we judge others by their actions and they judge us by ours.

No matter what we may wish to be or say, our behaviors and our words come out of the store of what is inside of us.

Yes, we all have bad moments in time, but each of us also needs to consider how we move, live, and speak with a greater intentionality.

 

Intentionality reflects being deliberate and purposeful in how we represent ourselves, our Lord, and any and all associated with us. It also takes into account that with the best of intentions, not everyone will hear what it is we have said as we meant it to be communicated.

Trey Gowdy speaks with a great deal of insight on this topic in Unified. Here is a part of his thoughts:

“When I speak, the intention behind my words is important; but what the other person hears is even more important. The quality of my communication is always determined by the listener. Unless the other person understands and receives what we mean to say, we haven’t communicated effectively. We must speak the same language, define our terms, pursue a common understanding, and be bold and honest enough to speak up with one another…It doesn’t have to be confrontational – in fact, it’s better if it’s not – but it must be candid, truthful, and to the point. And we must be willing to listen and seek to understand the other side’s perspective.”

 

Few of us can claim not to have been exposed to enough truth to be clear on this. It speaks to congruency and integrity, consistency and intentionality and a clear understanding that our words matter, our actions matter, and both have consequences in this life and the next.

Each of us has the opportunity to make a difference in standing in the gap and reducing the division where we are planted and placed.

As Tim Scott notes:

“The truth is, we all need someone to model the expectation and show us the way. Leadership is caught, not taught.”

 

Courses on leadership abound along with more leadership training seminars than anyone can imagine and yet in every sphere and area, it is harder and harder to find true and effective leadership.

It begins with “cleaning the slate inside.”  Listen to Tim Scott’s powerful truth on this subject:

“The honest truth is that the slate that most needs cleaning is the one inside each of us – the one that has all our preconceptions, prejudices, and poisonous attitudes written on it. The one where we have recorded our pain. When I look in the mirror and see someone who has been forgiven, it’s easier for me to clean the slate with others and start fresh.”

 

 Adding to that:

“If we want to establish friendships with people who are different from us, we simply cannot blame them for the things that others have said or done to us in the past. We cannot afford to blur the lines of responsibility. We must believe the best about each other and give each other the benefit of the doubt. In a sense, we are all living with the consequences of what others have done or not done, but let’s not attribute those things to one another. Let’s make an intentional decision to start fresh.”  Trey Gowdy

If we truly desire a better home, better neighborhood, better church, better workplace, or better nation, what is each of us demonstrating in our words and actions that show that intentionality?

I pray it will not be said of us what Ezekiel writes in Ezekiel 22:30 (NASB):

“I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.”

 

The wall was to keep out every ungodly thing raised up against what God had ordained and set forward.

Will each of us have the courage and intentionality to stand in the growing gap created by focusing on our differences, attributing things to one another without even knowing each other?