Wednesday, January 21, 2009

more honesty

The discussion on honesty continues over at Jean's blog.

In my experience, the situation usually goes something like this. We're hanging out with friends and someone says "I find that I'm getting angry with my kids all the time. It's horrible." Then I, wanting to sympathise with her, will jump in saying something like, "Me too. Just yesterday...." then proceed to give an account of my dreadful anger the day before. My friend feels much better because I understand and her sin is 'normal'. I feel better for having helped her to feel better. We also feel better because it's theraputic to talk about what's bothering us. We've gotten it off our chests. Other friends around us will feel better because their experience of anger is not as bad as ours. There has been no repentance, no change, no prayer, no further dependance on God. Nothing has been gained.

I plan to change how I respond in this situation, right from the beginning. Here's how.

1. Take the focus off me. This is about my friend and her godliness, not mine. I need to use my conversational skills to draw her out, not to tell funny (or horrible) stories about myself. I should ask questions about when the sin occurs, how she feels about it at the time (is it a relief?), are the things that she seems to be angry about the things she is really angry about - or are they just an outlet for some deeper anger, discontent or resentment that she has.

2. Agree with her that the sin is significant and horrible, but admit that it's something that we struggle with too (no details!) Don't let her off the hook!

3. Ask questions to help her work out what repentance might look like. For example, if she finds she is angry with her kids because she'd rather read blogs than play with them, perhaps she needs to tackle her blog addiction... (not that I know anything about that!)

4. Pray if appropriate and tell her you'll ask how she's going next week (or whenever).

You can ask me in a few weeks how this is going.

Now what about talking about our sins as part of a bible talk or seminar or something like that?

I think women often do this very unhelpfully. Mature preacher men don't do it much at all. We so want to connect to our hearers that we overshare. When I hear a speaker go into details of her sin I feel self-righteous because I realise I'm doing better than she is - and hey, she's a super christian! - so I stop trying. If we're going about the same, the sin is normalised. It's unlikely that her sin will seem less than mine because she will tell the story so well. I think the policy here should be, more time on what God wants, fewer details about me.

The (male) preacher who has most compellingly called me to repentance is one who has experienced significant struggle with sin. This comes out, not in the details, but in the empathetic way in which he preaches. Without sharing any of his own, I know that he understands my battles and he points me to Jesus for forgiveness and strength.

8 comments:

  1. I think you've hit the nail on the head... great ideas :)

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  2. Great post - I get exactly what you mean. Food for thought...

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  3. Simone, I've put your comment from this morning on my blog, sorry it got missed somehow.

    Simone, I've put that quote I promised on my blog. See what you think! I agree with you that the last thing you want to see is a preacher parading their sin in detail from the pulpit. I also agree women are more prone to this than men when they speak to women, partly because they're less experienced as preachers, and also because women like to talk about experience. I think what you say is a helpful reminder to be careful about this in our teaching, and I'll be thinking a lot harder about this when I speak to groups of women in future, thankyou! But I do think there's a place for sharing our sin in the context of the Bible, as Piper shows.

    On the personal conversation: your example of how to follow a comment like this up is excellent! My only hesitation is that I don't think conversation is the same as preaching - it's more appropriate to talk about details of my life in this context. And I think this can be helpful to disarm people and help them to see that I struggle too. There's a place for working alongside one another to deal with sin, too - to be accountable to one another - isn't there? I think I'd find it hard to talk to someone who always went straight to "this is what you should do to fix it" - what do you think? I would find it more helpful if they shared their struggles and how they seek to change (without gossip or salaciousness or unhelpful specifics). It would help me approach them with my sin.

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  4. Yeah. I'm overstating, of course.

    As women, I don't think there's much danger that we won't do the sympathizing thing. I do it without even knowing that I am. Just trying to wind things back the other way a bit...

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  5. Fair enough, Simone, and I agree - we do tend to that as women! The whole point, isn't it, is whether our honesty is used to lead others to Christ. Thanks for the discussion!

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  6. And thanks again for helping me to think through this whole issue - it was you who challenged me to think about it in the first place. I am very grateful.

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  7. was fun. Now lets see if it makes any difference...

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  8. Also, welcome Sophie. Nice to have you. I see you're asking some good questions over on your blog...

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