Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Colossians 3:12-13
I placed my grocery order online and scheduled them for delivery (as is the new trend for this COVID season, everything can be delivered!) One of my regular shoppers grabbed the order. I love seeing that my order is in the hands of someone I know and trust!
When he arrived with my groceries, we took a few minutes to catch up. He’s a real nice guy. Retired. Particular. Generous. Thoughtful. All the things you look for in a good friend and shopper.
We chatted about the ins and outs of his job; perks and disappointments. He mentioned a coworker that was often times hard to get along with. “She’s angry at the world,” he said.
My heart said, “Aww.”
He went on about how her life was not living up to how most of us would measure happiness: Single. Divorced. Living alone. Celebrating holidays with her ex and his family because she didn’t have anyone better to hang out with.
I began to understand why she might be angry and a little rude towards the people that cross her path. I would be too. I have been as well.
As my mind stepped into its own alternate reality (as it often does when I start to put myself in someone else’s shoes), I said, “I feel like it’s those kinds of people that we need to love on the most. We need to be the someone that interrupts their storm. An unsuspecting stranger that is so dang sweet to them they don’t understand what’s happening in that moment.”
He stopped, laughed and exclaimed, “She needs a boyfriend!”
I forced out a snicker as my heart drooped a little more and I let out a sigh.
Isn’t it just like the world to choose to look past your struggles and broken heartedness and instead of sinking to our knees next to you, embracing you in a loving hug, we opt for finger pointing and jab you with a quick fix to solve your unhappiness problems. “Get a boyfriend. That will fix everything.” Sigh.
No wonder the world is so hurt.
As the shopper left, I sank into deep thought about what “interrupting someone’s storm” would look like.
I’ll be the first to tell you I am NOT a happy-go-lucky person. I’m terrible at starting and keeping conversations going and optimism and bright sides are something I really have to work at. So I’ll be honest: in the alternate reality scene playing out inside my brain, I am most certainly not the starring lead role of Storm Interrupter. In the cast lineup, I look more like Passerby #4. The one that stops and stares and then goes and tells all her friends about what she saw but silently wishes she could one day be the kind of person that Storm Interrupter was that day.
I also quickly identified that it’s easy for me to have a compassionate heart for someone who has not directly hurt me.
I’m not sure if I prayed for an opportunity to practice this all out or if the Lord was just priming my heart and mind for what was about to happen next. Nevertheless, it happened.
Later that evening, I had the hurt done to me.
Life hack: Turn your phone on DND after 8pm. It’s a great tip for getting to sleep earlier and easier but it’s also been a saving grace for avoiding the late night adrenaline rush that comes from being caught off guard on the receiving end of someone else’s bad day.
I want to prime your heart before I go on in hopes that we can put on Paul’s perspective from Ephesians 6:12 as I tell this story:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.“
This is what I tell myself: “If I’m going to do this Christ-thing, I have to get one thing straight: this a move of the enemy, not a move of God’s child.”
It’s a heck of a lot easier for me to not take a direct attack personally when I can immediately identify the hit as a third-party move. It leaves space in my heart for compassion for the offender.
In full transparency, this is a work in progress for me. I fail at this SO MUCH and especially when it’s people with whom I have a daily relationship. Looking at my track record, you’d think I enjoyed taking things personally!
It’s one of my strongholds, something I have always struggled with that keeps me hurt and bound by my own feelings.
How do you know when you’ve overcome and been set free from something you’ve been struggling with? (anger, alcohol, drugs, passive aggressiveness, unforgiveness, dishonesty, greed, envy, covetousness, malice, deceit, gossiping, pride, disobedience, to name a few.)
The absence of that struggle in your life is not proof that you’ve been freed from it. In order to truly identify if you’ve been set free from a stronghold, you need to be tested.
So my question to myself is this: Have I stopped personalizing other people’s projected pain so I can be more compassionate rather than reactionary to their unprocessed emotions? (In other words, have I stopped taking things so personally?)
Short answer: No.
BUT, I can say with assurance, that I’m making progress. I know this because when the hurt was done directly to me:
1) I didn’t cry (neither tears of anger nor tears of hurt and you guys, this is big for me!)
2) rather than angrily venting to someone, talking myself in circles about how they’re wrong and I’m justified, thus triggering the growth of resentment, my initial reaction was a big sigh. A sigh of exhaustion with the thought of, “Not this again.” A sigh with the realization of the damage control I now needed to go pray about and work through. A sigh to mourn the loss of my current level of peace.
And that last sentence right there is when I realized what this was really about. This was warfare. This wasn’t a person just out to get me. It was a move of the enemy
But it was also a test.
How will I ever know my progress on whether or not I’ve gotten better about taking things personally if the Lord doesn’t bring opportunities up for me to test my current skills?
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.“
James 1:2-3
I’m not sure what a passing grade looks like on this test but what I do know is that I didn’t react like I used to. And that’s all He’s wanting from me. Not perfection; just progress. To be better today than I was yesterday.
And with every lashing out, projection of hurt, or unprocessed emotion that is flung in my direction, I get to practice.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”
Psalm 23:5
“But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.'”
Matthew 5:48
Every encounter with struggles and troubles are times to practice. I also believe that while we might say, “I cannot deal with this person,” “I’m not ready for this,” or “This is too much,” He knows the facts. If it’s in our path, we are prepared to conquer it.
Yes, it might be way too much for us to handle on our own, but that’s why we need God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. He WILL give us more than we can handle because He needs to show the world what an almighty God can do through a weak unprepared human.
So as I practice not taking things personally, I’m finding that it’s a whole lot easier to practice the second half of Colossians 3:13: “bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other…”
When I see the complaint against me as either an opportunity to repent or as a move of the enemy, my heart softens. Compassion fills the places where anger and resentment would normally reside, and the door for extending forgiveness is flung wide open.
In the last week, Colossians 3 has come into the light several times. It was first brought up as a reference scripture in my morning bible study book. That same morning, I received a screenshot of the Verse of the Day from my brother, which happened to be Colossians 3:13 again! That same evening, I sat down and started a new book and within the first six pages, Colossians 3 was referenced AGAIN! And finally, a few days later, Colossians 3 was referenced in Sunday’s church sermon.
I’m not even sure I had read Colossians 3 before last week!
I don’t know about you, but being fairly new to the whole “listening for God’s voice” thing, man, am I so thankful He repeats himself over and over and over! And it’s always so gentle and not at all like what happens in our house when I have to repeat myself over and over and over!
Praise be to God for being an unchanging, steadfast lover of our souls! How sweet the sound of His amazing grace!
In this season of giving, I pray we all practice through the tests. May we immediately see the test for what it really is, leaving room for compassion and forgiveness. May the strength of our faith deepen through the trials as we lean on Jesus to help us make progress, not perfection.