The Character Equation – part Speaking our your Live

Words have power!

If you don’t think that’s true, try being hit in the face by a thesaurus.

In the previous post in this series on different aspects of character, i took a look at the power and importance of living out your words. If there is no action, the words tend towards meaningless and ineffectual. i spoke about the phrase: “What you do speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”

In terms of character definition, i think action is of vital importance. A lot of character stands and falls on what you do.

But that does not mean for a second that words are not important.

“In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.” – Plutarch

i think it goes even deeper than that though.

Who you speak to can speak volumes about your character. Jesus was an incredible example of this as He constantly reached out to people in society who were considered “less than” by everyone else. So from women and children to the Samaritans (who were traditional enemies of the jews) to outsiders such as lepers, drunks and prostitutes, even simply His choosing to engage with them was like a deafening roar of contradiction to the hypocracy and legalism the people were used to, all too often, from the religious leaders of the day.

How you speak can at times be so much powerful than the words being spoken as the attitude behind and delivery of the words will often communicate what is truly at work in the person speaking them. A disingenuous apology, a reluctant promise or a hesitant “I love you” all give fairly obvious testimony to that.

What you speak is pretty self explanatory. The words we speak have extreme power both ways – to lift up or to break down. Words can really transform people in the best of ways, helping them believe in themselves, spurring them on to greatness or creativity, and challenging them to live life more fully to the full. But they can also distressingly mangle and break down and bruise and wound and cause self-doubt and fear and worse. The words we speak to people can be a strong definer of the character we possess. And as effective as a well placed apology can be, words can be forgiven, but they can not be easily forgotten. Once spoken, it is impossible to take words back.

Proverbs 18 sums it up well: 

²¹ The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit. 

What fruit is your tongue contributing to?

[To return to the start of this Character series, click here]

back to your future: Part Forgive

‘We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.’ [ Rick Warren]

Continuing this series on looking backwards to move forwards well, this has to be one of the hugest aspects of how it can be beneficial for you. Getting this one right can transform your life and relationships – it won’t necessarily be the easiest of journeys, but it will be completely worth it.

‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.’ [Mother Teresa]

Sometimes people can be mean. They can be jerks. Sometimes we probably deserve it. Other times it might come as a complete blind side and have nothing to do with us. But at some point in life, especially if you are living a Jesus-following life [or trying to], someone is going to hurt you, a lot, and you need to figure out how best you can and should respond.

Stephan Pastis, through his amazing comic strip, Pearls before Swine, captures it this way:

Which is Truth number one, which I have also heard put this way – ‘Holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking a cup of poison and hoping that the other person will die.’

And it’s true. There can even be times when someone has done something to hurt you and so you nurse a grudge against them and they don’t even know they have done it. So they are living life completely unaware that they even hurt you in any way and you are starting to fester with anger and bitterness and maybe even thoughts of revenge. It is so healthy to approach the person directly and hopefully be able to resolve it well, but at the very least be able to get to the point of forgiveness and then move on.

Jesus deals with it in the prayer He teaches His disciples by introducing the phrase, ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’ The link there is very intentional and implies that you can’t have one without the other. But, knowing how slow we are, He almost sneaks this one in right at the end of the prayer, just to make sure we got it: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” [Matthew 6.14-15]

He echoes it again big time in the parable of the unmerciful servant, found in Matthew 18. From a place of realisation of all that you have been forgiven by God, the natural reaction should by you extending forgiveness, mercy and grace to those around you. But it is also something He commands us to do with the proviso that if we are unable to, then we surely will not receive forgiveness from God.

Which brings us to a second important Truth:

If we truly love God and our neighbor [another great command Jesus demonstrated so well in His life, and also in His death as He gasped out the words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” while literally dying on the cross for those who had put Him there [Luke 23.34], then forgiving them should be a natural desire for their sake, but the reality is that forgiving someone else frees us from bitterness, deep anger and hatred which threatens to eat us up. I strongly believe that if you live with any measure of unforgiveness in your life, that it will affect every single other relationship you are in. You cannot experience or offer true Love unless you are willing to come to a place of forgiveness towards those who have wronged you. [with the knowledge that forgiving them doesn’t mean what they did was not wrong or hurtful to you].

Which brings us to this absolute Truth:

If you have been deeply hurt by someone then everything in you may be wanting to revolt against that statement. But it is true. People can encourage towards anger. People can provide context for offence.

But each one of us decides whether we take it on or not. And remember the word in the Bible was not about anger being wrong, but rather it says, ‘in your anger do not sin,’ [Ephesians 4.26] which feels a whole lot more achievable.

THE CHOICE FACTOR

A helpful Truth is to realise that Forgiveness is not a feeling. Much like Patience and sometimes Love, you don’t always feel like forgiving. Especially if what the person did to you was really hectic and just messed up [like some form of abuse or physical assault]. It is largely the decision to not allow what was done to you to affect your daily life and relationships with others. The more painful the thing done to you, the more often you have to make the choice. So maybe at the beginning you have to decide every hour to forgive that person. After a while hopefully it becomes a few times a day. And then eventually it once a day and then hopefully once or twice a week. “Today I choose not to hold this thing against them, or to let it affect me.” And trusting that God is big enough to help you, maybe not forget the thing completely, but to not remember it with anger and bitterness and the need for revenge. What amazes me about the Love of God is not that He had this kind of spiritual amnesia when it comes to my sin, but that knowing the sin I have been involved in, He chooses to absolutely not hold it against me and treats me as if I have never done any of that stuff. This is what we hope for.

On the plus side, there is the assurance that God will not let the wrong go unpunished. “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” [Romans 12.20]

I know, I know, I too have wanted to suggest that perhaps that wasn’t necessarily meant as a metaphor in ‘this particular case’ but sadly the Greek holds up. But God has this. Don’t waste time, energy or health and don’t damage your other relationships in life by holding on to something that, like with pig at the top, may not even be affecting the other person even in the slightest. Extend forgiveness. Choose life to the full.

‘You couldn’t erase the past. You couldn’t even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.’
[Ann Brashares]

Don’t waste this opportunity to free yourself from unforgiveness which affects every other relationship you have, even if you don’t realise it. And know that as hard or impossible-seeming as it might appear, that God promises you the resources and strength to be able to go through with it.

Some other posts on Forgiveness related matters include:

Ubuntu-botha [Rescuing the perpetrator]

Forgive without punishing

Amazing Grace, how costly so

How to condemn evil, while loving evil people

[To continue on to the next post looking at Regret, click here]

lausanne reflections: christians and bad movies

we watched a multiplex (workshop session) yesterday on Christians and the media and then we had a bunch of small group discussion on the topic – as i was mc’ing the meeting and made some statements about bad christian movies there were too many heads nodding in agreement for me to think this is just my particular cynicised view

the bottom line for me is that the church has some great stories – from the bible which really has some x-rated hollywood blockbuster stuff in it [tent pegs through the head, incest, adultery followed by murder of a high-ranking general to try and cover the fact, bears being called from the forest to maul a bunch of youth for daring to call the prophet a baldhead, the fire from heaven altar challenge between elijah and the prophets of baal, stonings, crucifixion] to true life dramas [bible smuggling into china, the mother teresa story, the missionaries who were killed by the aucas in south america – which became a movie ‘the end of the spear’ which i haven’t had the chance to see but the book is amazing] to fiction [writings of ted dekker, robert liparulo, frank peretti who i would all describe as stephen king if he was a christian – some great science fiction/fantasy/horror/supernatural writing] – and so the stories are definitely there, but i think we have quite a long way to go before we can tell them well on film

i, as a Christ follower, cringe when i hear that something is a “christian movie” so i can’t imagine what an unbeliever must think and feel (maybe they’re less critical than me, who knows?) but the majority of christian films down the ages have been cringeworthy, cheese-filled and generally with bad camerawork and production, useless acting and trite storylines

the one question i posed was this – is it good enough for us as Christ followers in the media to be making bad movies, so that perhaps one day we can make good movies, or would it sometimes be better to be making no movies at all?

another question posed by the group was on the sacred/secular split – the tendency we as christians have to divide life into what we call spiritual and what we call secular when, as one guy pointed out in my group, Jesus would probably be confused if i told Him about “my spiritual life” because to Him everything was spiritual – and so can’t we as Christ followers just start making good movies – when i look at a movie like ‘the blind Side’ with Sandra Bullock in, it was a really strong movie and received critical acclaim in many quarters but was not produced as a ‘christian movie’ – we have the stories, we just need to do better at getting them across

i think personally that we do a lot better in the area of music whereas in the 80’s there were maybe the big 5 of mainstream christian musicians in amy grant, steve curtis chapman, michael w smith, carman and then if you were really hardcore maybe dc talk and they were all ‘good for a christian band’ music types [let the hating begin, ha!] but i think today Christ-following musicians and bands have gained a lot more street cred and in many cases are as good if not sometimes even better than their non-Christ-following counterparts… so there is hope

personally i don’t think it’s good enough that we create bad christian movies (or music or books) and i really wish the people making them would have better filters or just go hang out in the world a little bit to get a clue as to the kind of quality we should be producing. i imagine some people might see this post as a little harsh and unloving, but i think the reality is that when we are representing Christ, there is a strong case for us doing it well and effectively and in a way that impacts society rather than causing it to withdraw

i long for the day we can say ‘that was a great movie’ and not feel the need to simply compare it to other worse ‘christian movies’ as a means of greatifying it

hitler’s mom

so i read in the newspaper today before church (stocking up on caffeine and chocolate crouissant at the bp) that Jacob Zuma (our president) has fathered another child.

i never used to like Zuma. i heard a lot of bad things about him and saw him involved in some criminal cases with various accusations and he made some infamously bad statements about showering preventing AIDS (after being head of some AIDS council or something) and so i didn’t have a positive opinion

then i found out that my girlfriend (now wife, the beautiful Val) was friends with one of Zuma’s children and i met them and they were a really cool personage and so the one day i emailed them on Facebook and asked them to tell me one nice thing about their dad (cos i only had the bad stuff so what is one thing you really like about your dad that no-one else would know) – and they told me a thing – and it was a cool thing related to him being a family man and really vibing with the family

and it was cool to view someone i didn’t think much of  (an opinion mostly formed by what i’d read or seen in the media) from someone who loved them’s perspective

and it made me think yesterday that even Hitler must have had a mom – probably Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden have friends or family members who dig them and spent some good times with them – serial killer Charles Manson had a girl at college who had a crush on him, that kind of thing

something somewhere along the line went wrong i would imagine – and maybe it was early on – but no-one is born inherently completely irredeemably evil – horrible upbringing or traumatic boarding school experience or some kind of abuse or lack of parent or something and the wrong path is chosen

it makes me want to be a little more aware of the young people i am working with at church and through camps and just everyone i come into contact with – because i would imagine on the flipside that people like Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa and Gandhi and Bono and, i dunno, whoever the turned-out-pretty-well people of the world are, had an upbringing where something went right

maybe i can be that thing. maybe you can.