“The South is known for saying ‘bless your heart’ to peoples’ faces, then talking about them behind their back,” our pastor said recently.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that and I knew it was true. The south has it’s own faults just like the north, albeit different.
In the Pacific Northwest where I’m from, you’ll see lots of addicts, drugs, and alcohol. You may even see barbed wire strung over bridges to prevent more suicide, and you may or may not be allowed to use a rest room in a cafe where you just purchased coffee because too many teens use drugs in the teeny room out of sight.
“Do I look like I use drugs?” I asked the barista once, gently. “Can I please use your bathroom?”
She looked at me and nodded her head, and I had a bathroom.
Of course there’s graffiti everywhere, too. Like the gum wall in Seattle that isn’t only splashed in color, but covered in chewed gum. (Don’t ask me why this reminds me of my childhood when I used to find pieces of gum in the driveway and started chewing on it myself.)
The north has its vices, out there in the Ho Rainforest where water drips off magnificent trees and waterfalls tumble over rocks, where mountains rise in the distance with such splendor that one can only stare and wish to score the next highest peak, where flowers bloom alongside patches of snow, somehow all of it stepping toward the sea.
There’s nothing more glorious than a campfire with some of your best friends on top such a mountain—and I’ll sleep up there any day no matter how hard the ground is.
It’s in the towns below where the trouble is obvious. I don’t want to see barbed wire strung high over a bridge to prevent one more teen a voluntary death, desperate to escape mental despair.
It’s odd though, that here in the South, where wealth is obvious and churches stand on every street corner, where business trucks roll along with “Heaven and Earth Landscape” or “Alpha and Omega Construction”–it’s here that we’re known for gossip and gluttony.
The Bible Belt. We can preach the word of God without having the heart of God.
I’ve been troubled by my own words at times. Like a knowing in my soul that I sometimes said things about others that didn’t need to be said. I didn’t like it—and I struggled to make sense of it. What was God saying to me?
Here’s what God was trying to teach me.
1. Anything not said in love for the well-being of another, doesn’t need to be said.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.” 1 Corinthians 13: 1
I was once aware of another’s sin repeated without cause to someone. I felt terrible for the person it was said about (I don’t even know the person) and realized again that the ruckus of gossip can ruin lives. This dear person could repent to God and others who wouldn’t repeat it, but if someone merely discussed it, it could have long lasting affects. My heart ached that God’s people would allow for redemption by not passing along information needlessly, even if it was true.
2. Be a safe person.
Once I shared something with a friend and later wondered if it was kept in confidence. I picked up the phone and asked her. She had kept my heart and life in confidence and it meant so much to me. I want to do the same for others.
3. Realize that gossip comes from insecurity.
What wounds are we trying to heal by wounding another? Why can we feel good about ourselves by making someone else look bad?
What are we feeling so terrible about in our own lives that we feel the need to tear another person down, just so we can feel lifted up?
“How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” John 5:44
4. When we stop worrying about what others think, there’s a light joy over us that has no desire or need to talk badly about someone else, even if it’s true.
I became so enamoured with grace that I wanted to give it to others. I wanted to hug the person I used to be bitter toward—and the person I went to in person about the way she’d hurt others, well, I wanted her wrapped up in love, too.
Redeeming love toward all people became my theme. Bitterness fell off me and I could no longer hold grudges—even if someone had wronged me. I knew I had also wronged others and I needed a whole lot of grace, too.
Like a summer night lit up by an evening sky, the light of God’s love became so real that I longed for everyone not to worry what people thought, but to know deeply the thoughts of God toward them.
5. Go to people alone when you need to.
Do it before you talk to others, before you dump to your girlfriend, before you share it in a text.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Matthew 18:15
Here, we see the way God loves people. He doesn’t want His people discussed in a bad light because His heart toward them is good and growth—and He died to extend that kind of amazing grace to fallen mankind who would all need it at some point of their lives.
He wants you to go alone, so the person can repent with privacy and integrity.
If the person refuses to change his ways, He wants you to take others with you for added accountability.
See this—he’s not throwing the person with the problem under the bus. He gives him a private chance first.
Then, He’s not leaving you helpless and hurt. He asks you to take others with you if you need help after not being heard.
Redemption in the best way possible is God’s heart for all people—and it should be our hearts, too.
Lesser methods are a symptom of less than love in our hearts.
We may be afraid to confront someone—God asks us to trust Him in all things He asks us to do. “Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18b, ESV
We may be afraid of someone not liking us if we gently confront them about something. In order to keep ourselves safe, we head to a friend to vent rather than to the person herself.
I have to think Jesus weeps over pride like this—and here’s the thing, He absolutely knows how to humble us.
“But He gives more grace. Therefor it says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6, Esv
At the end, the only disclaimer I can give is if someone isn’t safe. Then, you need to head for help immediately. There are absolutely times when emotional, spiritual, or physical abuse call for immediate intervention without first going alone.
God loves you. He keeps you safe in His care by giving you safe people.
God loves others also. He aims to redeem them with the Grace He died for. Can you help others run to Jesus rather than run from people who call themselves Jesus Followers?
Humble and loving, Jesus was most relaxed with sinners who saw their need and longed to touch the hem of His robe for healing and forgiveness. He tensed up with religious people who did whatever it took to feel righteous about themselves rather than enter the righteousness of Christ where everyone kneels on horizontal ground in utter need of absolute grace.
Living in the goodness of God, as Jenn Johnson so beautifully sings, means we don’t live in our own goodness or in another’s goodness. We expect to find faults everywhere we go, and we expect to give grace as we want to receive it.
Then, we confess our faults to trustworthy people, because owning where we’ve gone wrong helps us get closer to what’s right. Rather, the only One Who’s always right.
And we get this deeply, this undeniable truth that walking toward a church building won’t make us a real Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes us a car.
It’s mercy and truth that meet together in one redemptive wrap around, like a circle of redeeming love. There, we can truly say “I’m a Jesus Follower and we love each other.”
Stand with me here, walk with me here, kneel with me here, for His glory and for the sake of those He loves—which is EVERYONE.
“Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be til I die.”
By Grace alone,
Sara D.
Women of Purpose 