An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. -Proverbs 27:5-6 (NLT)

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. -2 Timothy 1:7 (NASB)

I grew up in a household and culture where confrontation was taboo, and avoidance was the unspoken rule. To speak your mind was to confront, to possibly imply that someone else was wrong, and neither one was okay. It was the unspoken rule to be quiet, be obedient, and keep my thoughts to myself.

This had tremendous consequences in personal and business relationships, even to this day. Avoidance of issues and confrontation could make for worse consequences down the road…consequences that could have been avoided if I’d spoken up earlier.

The other byproducts of avoidance are resentment and secrecy. Not feeling free to speak and share meant I had to either be disgruntled and stuff my feelings, or act in secret to get my way while still not causing a disturbance.

But Jesus woke me up, broke my elephant chain, and showed me what He did: He confronted sin directly. He went deep into the uncomfortable, unpleasant, and unfriendly places to show what love really looked like.

When we truly love others, we lovingly speak up and out against sin and wrongdoing. It may not be met with gratitude or even love or kindness in return, but we know we follow in His footsteps when we righteously stand up and speak up.

Call out abuse. Call out rudeness. Speak what’s on your heart, rather than holding it in again. Stop the enabling and codependency you’ve been unwittingly generating.

It’s not always easy to do that, especially if you’ve been conditioned to not rock the boat at any cost. But whether it’s your child or your spouse or your boss, know He will carry and support you–and even forge you a backbone–as you act and speak out in love, exposing sin in His light of truth. True love confronts.

Therefore the Lord said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, -Isaiah 29:13 (NASB)

“The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.”
‭‭- Proverbs‬ ‭12:22‬ ‭(NLT‬‬)

When you’ve hit rock bottom, and you have nothing but desperate cries and whimpers to God for comfort and strength and help, those cries are so genuine. They’re the cries of a soul that can no longer try to hold things together in its own strength. The cries of a soul that is open and receptive to complete surrender. The cries of a soul that is finally ready to get out of the way and let God work.

That’s a stark contrast to the prayers of those whose hearts are far from God, who pray to be seen and praised, and who live for themselves. These are the prayers of those who are not vehicles of God’s glory, but insincere facades of real Christ followers. These are the prayers of those who are Christians in name only.

Rest assured that God knows the difference, and that He detests lip service. He is ready and listening to heartfelt cries and prayers. Such prayers are musical notes coming from hearts ready to praise Him and properly live in dependence on His provision. Let your heart cry out to the Lord, and He will hear you.

Today’s soundtrack

Amy Grant’s “Better Than A Hallelujah” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm5kx3xqmg0 tells us that God hears our sincere cries to Him as music to His ears.

It [God’s grace] teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. -Titus 2:12 (NIV)

If you’re a nice person who’s tired of being taken advantage of and treated like a doormat, I want to share with you the Reese’s peanut butter cups of truth Jesus laid on me.

Reese’s peanut butter cups?!?

Let me explain. In the ’80S, there was a television ad where a man was walking down the sidewalk enjoying a chocolate bar, and a woman walking on an intersecting sidewalk was enjoying their jar of peanut butter. (Who does that?)

The two end up colliding with each other, and the man’s chocolate bar ends up in the woman’s peanut butter jar…and they discover that the unexpected combination is an amazing synthesis!

And so it is with two separate lessons Jesus, the light of truth on the lies in our lives, showed to me that I needed to put boundaries and truth, not niceness together to make a better…stronger…healthier me than ever before.

Boundaries: The chocolate part of the mix

As I wrote in Build fences, not walls, boundaries are our explicit expression of where others end and we begin. It’s a friendly demarcation, like a boundary line of a piece of land. It’s like a fence, not a wall. For example, we can healthily express when we don’t have time or resources to help someone else. We can tell someone that if they continue to act poorly to us, we will not stay in their presence and needlessly bear the brunt of it.

Without boundaries, we have no fence for others to clearly understand who we are. And for those who don’t understand boundaries and possibly are used to getting their way, they will gladly overrun you. It’s the perfect storm for codependency.

By setting boundaries, you’re no longer a prisoner in the cell of your own making.

Niceness: The peanut butter part of the mix

Niceness is the other culprit. Also mentioned in Doormat no more, niceness is passive aggressively living a boundary-less life, constantly giving and taking on unnecessary work and personal burdens. Resentment builds and builds, until your dam finally bursts and no one knows why. The cure for such lack of disingenuousness is honesty, not spoken bluntly or barked, but firmly and calmly. No, I won’t be doing your _______ for you any more. I’ve been taking on too much for myself, and shortchanging you of doing it for yourself.

What is revealed when you trust in God as you take such stands is this: the people in your life who understand and respect you and your boundaries will have no issue with it. They will thank you for expressing yourself honestly…and respecting them enough to do just that. The people who don’t understand or respect boundaries will not take well to it at all. And you can thank Jesus for helping you shed light on those two groups!

So why doesn’t God just make my life better for me?

Want healthier interpersonal relationships, rather than asking God why were you cast your lot in life, and why doesn’t He fix it for you? The revelation He gave me was that He does want to fix those things…through you! He wants us to take responsibility for our actions and boundaries, which not only affect our emotional and spiritual health and growth, but that of others around us.

Yes, that will likely mean you will face hostility from those who weren’t used to having boundaries to respect. Yes, you may feel very uncomfortable with the displeasure of others when you’re not doing things for them that they could do for themselves. But God wants you to live in the freedom of emotional healthiness, not the bondage of twisted relationship dynamics. And, the more you stand up and live boldly and freely and righteously in emotional and spiritual truth, the less that the takers in your life will be around, because you’re no longer fueling their tendencies. They’ll have to look elsewhere, or possibly change their perspective as well.

It took over 40 years till Jesus decided it was time to open my eyes to Him, and the amazing journey of emotional and spiritual growth ahead. If you battle with niceness, resentment, and boundary issues, I pray the lessons Jesus sparked in me will do the same for you!

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. -James 5:16 (NASB)

The other day I lost my patience and was short with my son when he was being rude to me…and he told me, “It’s okay, daddy, I forgive you.” I was thinking wait a second, I should be forgiving you!…but then I realized God was reminding me that He has already forgiven me for my falling short.

We were never meant to be perfect. Only Jesus ever was. And that’s okay for our kids to know.

This is a very different upbringing than I was used to. I grew up in a household where my parents were never wrong, so apologies or acknowledgement of any wrongdoing would never happen. There wasn’t any prayer, either. But apologies and acknowledgement of mistakes goes a long way toward healing and bonding, and prayer has powers to move mountains–even mountains of resentment and pain.

This excellent piece from Desiring God gives three key points about parenting (click the link to read more on each point):

1. God is not just working through me as a parent, but on me.
2. True confession is heartfelt, not contrived.
3. Good apologies don’t end with “but.”

True humility and honesty isn’t taught, but caught as we live it out to our kids. May our servant king forever be our model of unconditional love, patience, longsuffering, and heartfelt honesty.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. -Matthew 5:16 (NIV)

Interaction dynamics between people is always interesting…different personalities mixing with other ones can be explosive, or dominating.

Even if we just look in our own families, there’s a wide, wide range of personalities. You have the hotheads, who are aggressive, and quick to blurt out inflammatory words. On the other end, you have the doormats, who will do just about anything to keep the peace, often at their own cost.

Neither extreme honors God. We’re not to just hotheadedly put ourselves over others, nor are we to back down when the just and righteous way is to speak up. The aggressive approach lacks the grace God gives us, and the doormat approach lacks the backbone He gives us.

In Paul Coughlin’s No More Christian Nice Guy: When Being Nice–Instead of Good–Hurts Men, Women and Children (and yes, there’s also a No More Christian Nice Girl), the author talks first about how aggressive types, who are quick to speak and judge, may be outwardly truer to their feelings, but the value of their expression is dubious. Their manner also reflects narrowness of focus, rather than a broader scope of issues at play. (p. 161)

He then goes on to a fundamental misunderstanding for the doormat types:

They think the opposite of conflict is appeasement, which sometimes includes timid deception. The opposite of conflict actually is resolution, a process that demands bold truthfulness. (p. 162)

We need to look back to how Jesus walked and talked. In His brief public ministry here on earth, Jesus was no pushover, nor was he a brash blowhard. He acted boldly but lovingly, tempered by grace. And, He always spoke in the truth.

If we want change in our lives, we need to follow Jesus’ lead, to be assertive and bold, with grace. That is the true and loving way, following His walk. And when we do that, we’re getting out of our own way and letting God’s love flow through us and others around us. I want to live like that…Him through me, for His glory. Don’t you?

Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. -I Peter 2:13-14 (NKJV)

They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. -‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22:21‬ ‭(NKJV)

Ever done something unlawful to another person, or had something unlawful done to you?

There are consequences for our actions. Though we are not of this world, and though we are passing through it, we are in it. We get sick, we age, and we die, as a consequence of original sin.

While we are here, we live in and are subject to the laws governing us where we live. Being believers does not put us in a position above or outside the laws of men. We are to shine God’s light while walking in step with the earthly laws and strictures of our day.

So, our interesting challenge is to square our obedience to God, followed by our obedience to the laws of men. Most of the time, that’s pretty simple. Neither God’s laws, nor the laws of men, want us to kill or willfully harm another person.

If you have sinned in God’s eyes against another, you need to earnestly ask forgiveness from the other person as well as God. If you have also broken an earthly law, there may be earthly consequences to pay, even if you are forgiven. Forgiveness doesn’t absolve us from the consequence of our sin!

As Christ followers traveling through this world, we honor God in facing up to our sins against Him and others, as well as taking on the consequences head on with grace. Jesus is our ultimate model in dealing with consequences: despite being blameless and sinless, He bore all of our sins, and His scourging and death was the price He paid with His life.

With His finished work to set the perspective, we can do no less than to exercise grace and responsibility for wrongdoing we commit or have inflicted upon us. How we handle it in a manner honoring God is where we differ from our unbelieving brethren.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. -Romans 12:2 (NIV) 

Sometimes, it just seems like everyone is against you. Everything is going wrong. Things can’t get worse.

Oh, but things can always be worse. Be truly grateful for that.

You can control how you view your situation, and a more positive outlook will suddenly show you how much more bearable everything really is. How agreeable others are, when you don’t assume negatively about them, or treat them negatively.

You’d be surprised how often making a positive change in your mindset and behavior can effect change around you. Try it.

This Joyce Meyer devotional explains how to change your mindset through meditation and reflection on the Word, and through authentic surrender:

For years I tried to make things in my life change and didn’t get anywhere. I would study the Bible and try. I would go to church and hear a message and try. Then I would tell God how hard I was trying, thinking maybe He’d feel sorry for me. And then I would go into my “drama” and say, “I just give up, God…”

The problem was, I was “trying” in my own strength, and I needed God’s help. I needed to realize the truth about myself and my situation before I could get His help and see results.

Read the whole devotional »