Raise your hand if you struggle with being corrected...if you take teaching and correction as pain and hurt instead of love? If you feel defenses rising up inside of you if you feel your heart has been misunderstood...If you hear "I want to lead you to Christ" as "I want to fix you"....If you don't feel secure enough in your identity to trust a person you care about's love for you...If you crave affirmation and praise to the unhealthy level of if you don't get it, you feel undesirable...unlovable...If you are so busy trying to "feel" care from others that you step all over and refuse to care for/give grace to the person you are trying to feel the care from.
Me. Pick me. My hand is raised high. Both hands actually.
You know, it's amazing when you finally stop long enough to have a conversation with God, and humble yourself before him, how much easier it is to love and be loved. Care and receive care. Understand and be understood. Listen and be listened to. Praise and be praised. Be gently corrected and gently correct. Give grace and compassion and receive grace and compassion.
Today. This is what happened today.
My husband and I have been working through certain disconnects we feel with each other, but today we finally sat down and got to the roots of the disconnect. I am not going to talk about him though, rather, myself. ***
I confess. I have not been a good model of a teachable wife. A caring wife. Why? Pride. Fear. Idols. Cravings. It all becomes a convoluted mess actually...
Let's just put it this way. It is my husband's role to lead and teach. To admonish and draw me closer to Christ. God calls him to that. When Joshua listens to that calling, he is loving me as deeply as he knows how. Loving me. Yes. But wait. he has called something out that he sees in my heart that I think is not entirely accurate. Or maybe I just feel like he hasn't cared to inquire more deeply of me as to why I feel the way I feel. Or maybe I don't want to be wrong, because I feel scared he won't see me as worthy of love (guess what, I'm not...no one is). Above all, maybe I think my heart is "good" or that what I'm being corrected in, couldn't possibly be possible (that's part of what I mean by pride).
All of those maybe's are true of me at different times.
Let me just say, my biggest downfall is not being open hearted and humble to ask the Lord where I can grow. What sins are lurking in my heart. Since when do we have perfectly motivated hearts all the time? Just because I have victory and a pure heart in an area one time, does not mean that every time after that, it will be pure. No one ever can analyze their heart on their own, without asking for the Holy Spirit's help, and say "I'm good." "I know I'm fine, I'm right....I know my heart." Guess what? The heart is deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" The moment we think we can ride on an example of the past where we "did well"...are "pure of heart"...is probably the moment we need to fall on our knees and ask the Lord to show us if we have any wrong in us. Search me God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is an offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).
In my cravings for affection and approval, in my idols of being understood and cared for, in my fear of losing what I love most(outside of Christ), in my sin of not giving grace when I am always called to give it....I buck up at teaching.
I hate being wrong. I don't want to hear the heart or motivation behind the person correcting me, I'd rather take some sort of pathetic comfort in wallowing in the pain of emotions I feel from being misunderstood (or having my conscience pricked) and let my feelings be what's true. Now, there is a looooot that can go into that of course, but at the root of it...
1. I don't see God the loving Father as truly loving me. I know He is a God of love, but I don't live like He loves me. Like He adopted me.
2. Therefore, I don't see correction and teaching as love, I see it as an attack or threat to the love I so desperately want (and already have!!)
3. I am selfish. I become so self-absorbed in my feelings, my desires, my frustrations, that I then refuse to give any grace or space for my husbands (or someone else I care about) feelings, desires and frustrations.
4. I buy into the enemy's lies that to humble yourself is to cause you to "lose" something.
Christ died for us, and He calls us to accept Him as Savior and live a life of obedience to him...and corrects us when we are wrong. We spit in His face all the time. When Joshua is called by God to show Christ to me, that means, he is called to correct me when I am wrong (granted, there are ways that are helpful and unhelpful, gracious or ungracious...but that is his responsibility). When I spit in His face, he then has the choice to continue to show Christ to me by responding in grace and love and patience...or sin against me in his hurt at my reaction. His choice.
What I cannot ....cannot do...is ask my husband to follow God...or follow Sarah. I cannot think of a worse thing that I could do in my role of wife (and daughter of the Lord). But...that is what I am doing, isn't it, when I refuse him the right to speak into my heart, and won't even acknowledge that maybe the Holy Spirit is revealing things about my heart that I don't see?? HOLY BAJOLI!
But, the Lord is so incredibly gracious to us, isn't He? He was so kind today in leading both of us in humility to learn the other person, to hear the other person and to love and listen.
I have a long way to go, but I am so thankful for evidences of grace I found just in today's conversation! I know this is pretty personal and heavy, but I think it can apply to anyone, not just spouses. It applies to all of our hearts before the Lord. So, I hope I have encouraged you as I have been encouraged, to go boldly and humbly before the Lord, taking security in our identity as his sons and daughters, and hope in the fact that even when we don't even know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning (Rom 8:26). Be comforted that when we are treated unjustly or are misunderstood, OR if we are genuinely wrong...that Gods love never fails...never gives up on you.
"Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption"
psalm 130:7
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