it is also important to say the message you want to get through to the person you love, to say it lovingly. paul had some brutal truths he had to share with the people at corinth, his friends. the bible tells us in 2 corinthians 6.13 (mes), i’m speaking as plainly as i can with great affection. he spoke it in a loving way.
you never use truth as a club. you never beat people up with the truth. you never hit them over the head with it. you say it in a loving way. and how do you know if you’re saying it in a loving way? it’s for their benefit, not yours. if you feel good in saying it, you’re probably saying it for your own benefit.
by the way, you never confront anonymously. that’s unloving. if a person doesn’t have the courage to confront and say who they are, how can you respond to them? you never ever confront anybody anonymously. that’s the coward’s way out. if you’re doing it anonymously, it means you’re not doing it in love. you’re doing it in anger or irritation.
you say it in love. one woman said, “in my 20s, my older sister had an emotional breakdown from the abuse we both experienced as kids. she started seeing a counselor. she urged me to get counsel, too, but i told her i didn’t believe CHRISTians need counseling. GOD would take care of all my problems. however, throughout my life i was plagued with sleeplessness and night terrors. i’d wake up terrified that the devil was after me. so i’d stay up all night scared to death, reading my bible and praying for deliverance but feeling no relief. i started acting out my fears at work, and then one day my boss who was a CHRISTian called me into his office and lovingly confronted me with the truth. he said, ‘you must get some counseling.’ he even had a name and number of a CHRISTian counselor ready for me. because he cared enough to level with me in love, i got help and i haven’t had night terrors in 10 years.”
speaking the truth in love. what if he hadn’t had the courage and the love to care about that employee? she’d still be in pain today. but he said it in a loving way.
just a thought from the front porch
1 comment:
So many people use the Truth, as they call it, in a harsh way, to embarrass and ridicule people. I believe that only a truth spoken lovingly can be any truth at all.
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