i planned, i grieved, i agonized...

this is foundational. we must hold to pure motives and show that we care before we speak the truth in love.

if you want to move out of grade-school loving and move into graduate-school loving, you’re going to have to learn this skill of how to confront issues in your relationship that are keeping you from being closer. if you want to move from superficial relationships and shallowness to deep, intimate, meaningful relationships, you’re going to have to learn how to confront issues that scare you to death. and you have to learn how to do it in love.

so once you have checked and corrected your motivation, you know you’re doing this because you genuinely care about the relationship or genuinely care about their better or good, then you plan your presentation.

you think through what you’re going to say before you say it. proverbs 16.23 (tev) says, intelligent people think before they speak. what they say then is more persuasive. if you want to be persuasive in a presentation, you must think through what you’re going to say in advance.

paul did this when he had some painful truths to present to people, his friends in corinth. he says this in 2 corinthians 2.4 (niv), i wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears. not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you. paul says, i had some tough things i had to write to you about. but this wasn’t impulsive. i didn’t just sit down and blast off an e-mail.

have you discovered how dangerous an e-mail can be? you can vent real quickly, hit the button and it’s gone. and then you wish you could pull it back.

paul says, “no, i sat down and thought about this. i agonized. i wept. that’s how much i care about you. when i had to say some tough things that you didn’t want to hear, but you really need to hear because your life is messed up, i really thought about it. i planned, i grieved, i agonized.”

just a thought from the front porch…