The following insight from Christian apologist Don Veinot of Midwest Christian Outreach dates back to 2007, but when I came across it again yesterday, I found it to be increasingly applicable, and a sober check on our tribal instincts:
"I have found that one small step for a man who regards himself too highly quickly leads to one giant leap of disregarding the rest of mankind. The same applies to groups, movements, and denominations and I've been no exception to that rule." Don Veinot
In the throes of difficult life transitions and unexpected challenges, or just daily responsibilities and unknowns, this quote from Phillip Keller, in his lovely book A Shepherd looks at Psalm 23, is a balm of reassurance settling across our mental, emotional and spiritual landscape:
"Somehow, in a serene quiet way, I am assured all will turn out well for my best because He is with me in the valley and things are under His control. To come to this conviction in the Christian life is to have entered into an attitude of quiet acceptance of every adversity." Phillip Keller
In families, the workplace, and almost any organizational, school or social gathering, a battle often takes place between certain individuals.
It is the battle to be noticed, to be at the fore, to be the expert (or perceived as such).
It is the battle not just to be esteemed, but to be esteemed more than the next person. It is the battle to be the one well-spoken of, to be the most impressive.
It is the battle to self-promote.
The weapons of this battle are those of one-upping, grandstanding, stealing someone’s thunder, glib sarcasm in response to another person’s good fortune or turn of events, attempts to make others jealous by promenading being favored (or the attempts to attain favor), and talking loudly so that all within earshot can overhear their plans and good deeds.
These weapons are so common that we hardly notice them for what they are: the tactical manipulations of self-presentation to garner praise and affirmation; to win influence and high regard.
Those around these types, feeling threatened by this behavior—not to mention overlooked and out-done—may intentionally or unintentionally take the bait and join the battle so that they, too, can defend themselves as being worthy. They enter the fray welding the same self-promotional armaments.
This sparring to be important, or to be at least as important as the next person, is a pattern repeated over and over again because those in the battle never solve the insecurity within.
If, however, we are fortunate, we will finally arrive at discernment for these types of showdowns and quickly take our leave of them, avoiding them altogether in the future.
We will, in the wisdom of the budding maturity in Christ which is addressing our inner insecurities, pray and intend to never take up the weaponry of self-promotional grandstanding again.
Copyright Barb Harwood
During the past week, I have encountered three separate individuals, two who live out of state and one locally, who have said they no longer read or listen to the news.
One person said they instead watch the old vintage Andy Griffith Show, another said she goes to the beach in her free time and sits in quietness, and the other person said he just simply could no longer “do” the news.
Inspired, I decided that, although I had stopped watching television news several years ago, I would also now refrain from reading Google headlines on my computer—something I usually do every morning as I sip my coffee.
I am on day three of not scanning and reading Google headlines and I must say, I don’t miss it.
Not at all.
In fact, it’s much easier than I had anticipated. Which surprised the news junkie in me.
What I perceive that myself, and those I have met who are dieting from the high stress calories of an incessant news feed, have discovered is that, news, as it is today, has morphed into something quite foreign to those of us born pre-1990’s.
To me, as I hold a journalism degree obtained way back in 1986, news is an entirely different animal today. The “who, what, why, when and where,” and the “just the facts” and “objectivity is non-negotiable” are dinosaurs.
I once emailed a news director of a local radio station to discuss the slang used in one of his correspondent’s “news” reports, which led to a discussion of objectivity and the five “W’s.” The director’s response:
“Nobody does it that way anymore.”
Indeed.
We see it all around. I’ve overheard several people commenting on how they have fallen for “click bait,” that sly luring of the reader in to a news article that, in the end, has little in common with its headline.
Integrity has become, I observe, an elective, and at times, held as a detriment by the powers-that-be to beating out the competition for “clicks” and television ratings.
Sensationalism isn’t just for the National Enquirer or Star Magazine any more.
The news as relayed today, instead of encouraging how to think about the world, is now all about manipulating the public into what to think, period.
And while all news isn't poorly reported, it has become narrow so that feeds such as Google pre-select and prioritize what they think we want to see--and so that is what we see--skewing our perception of what is actually taking place in the wider world, and leaving meatier, deeper and more relevant coverage out.
Again, my reason for signing off. I don't want Google to decide what I read or mislead me into thinking my feed is a realistic reflection of humanity.
While I tend to think the downward spiral of integrity in journalism began with CNN’s inauguration of the 24-hour news cycle, who knows how the zeitgeist of any one time period influences the general tenor of publicly produced information.
When people are stressed, as it seems they increasingly are (or maybe we are just led to believe that by what we read in the news) they seem to gravitate to even more stress: hence, the getting caught up in whatever mess is being promulgated on social media and television.
Maybe it gives folks a sense of self-importance to then repeat, enlarge-upon and opine about all they are seeing and reading online and on TV. And so the initial message is passed around and commiserated over as if we all have nothing better to do.
Eventually, this riding upon the speeding train of incessant and exaggerated, dramatized and agendized “news” produces varying levels of anxiety, and also, I believe, increased hatred towards those we read about (especially politically).
This hatred is brewed through the drip drip drip of flawed, one-sided and non-objective reporting, or obsessing over specific stories in the glee of freudenshade (lest we blame the media for this, are we, as the audience, also guilty of obsessing in warped glee over the demise of someone else? I can answer “yes” to that).
I hear it more and more: people are so quick to find fault, to be mean, to force their thinking upon others, and not willing to allow others to own opposing opinions, or better yet, actual facts. These tougher-than-nails town criers are ironically the very ones most offended when others behave the same towards them.
The diatribes, half-truths, blatant falsifications and selectivity in highlighting the negative and dramatic will no doubt continue to ramp up.
But we don’t have to be a part of it, or give it permission to turn us into the same.
Oh, I’m very well aware that my not Google-newsing it won’t make one bit of difference in the wider scheme of things. It’s not like I’m aiming to have any impact whatsoever on the world of journalism and social media by opting out.
All I can control—all I have ever been able to control—is what goes into my heart and mind, and what comes out.
And stepping away from the daily news feed (and any other media culprits that make life more complicated than it has to be or would otherwise be), and all the baggage which accompanies, doesn’t mean I’ll be less informed (again, reading and watching the news hardly guarantees we will be wisely and factually informed), it means I’ll not give permission for misinformation and pre-selected and pre-prioritized stories and topics to enter in.
It means instead of obsessing over what others tell me to think, I’ll give time and credence to how to think about what I choose is actually important, not what the talking heads proselytize and attempt to corner me into.
Copyright Barb Harwood
Show me a defensive person and I believe I will be seeing someone who is either not feeling affirmed, or is terrified of being taken advantage of.
In the first case, the feeling of not—or never—being affirmed is sometimes apparent to no-one except the defensive person themselves because it exists only within their mind. Even though they are affirmed and have been affirmed, for whatever reason, they miss it, misconstrue it, or latch onto a co-existing negative that eliminates any affirmation getting through.
Other times, sadly, they are, indeed, not affirmed, especially by the people most important to them. And instead of examining why this may be—either they have a flaw that needs addressing, or the other person lacks an ability to affirm—they take it personally. In blaming themselves for each and every response and reaction they receive, a hard shell of resentment and self-protection grows, resulting in easy and automatic defensiveness.
In the other case, that of the fear of being taken advantage of, the person consistently has been taken advantage of in life—commonly due to their amiable and innocent personality and disposition, birth order, or meek following of socially imposed “polite and obedience rules” (in the church, simplistic and one-sided “teachings” on submission).
Now, some folks have a dominantly sensitive disposition, just as some other folks have a hyper-assertive, aggressive disposition—neither of which is a positive, and so the sensitive are often manipulated, mowed down or belittled by the more forceful types. This creates a sense of insecurity and thus, a fear of being taken advantage of, which exposes itself in a shoot from the hip defensiveness.
Even when the sensitive become aware of their knack of being an easy target for others to throw their rude darts of subtle digs, or being milquetoast when around louder and more charismatic members of the social and familial hierarchy, they often cannot change this deeply set pattern of allowing others to undermine, disrespect or walk all over them (or to stop imagining it more than it actually occurs, or enlarging it in significance when it does).
I know, because this was me.
The only way I have been able to lessen the effect and impact of others upon myself has been to gain confidence in who I am and whose I am. And who I am is a child of God, and whose I am is His. It took years, and the refinement is ongoing.
But when we detach and extricate ourselves from the thinking that other people own, steer, dominate or identify us—we can, as God brings us forth into continual new birth through Christ, grow in the knowledge and love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which at the same time locates us increasingly in the knowledge and love of ourself, and others.
This knowing of who I am and whose I am is the essential factor in giving God permission to guide, develop, affirm, respect and identify me.
Once we become comfortable shedding self-protective measures, instead of feeling vulnerable and exposed, we are strong in grace and God’s accompaniment.
And other people, when we expand our understanding of them and their context, and that they, too, are fallen, no longer scare us. They may still frustrate us at times, but to a lesser and lesser degree, and eventually to where we may not even notice.
This gaining of joy through inner stability and peace with God through Christ’s new Spirit within is what will reduce and eliminate defensiveness—and it’s twin, offense—because we have accepted, trusted and prioritized God’s affirmation and equipping.
This enables us to assert in grace when called for, remain quiet in wisdom when called for (and I believe it is called for far more frequently than we think), and then move on from any past, present or future intended or unintended slights or deep hurts from others (along with those imagined in a weakened, feeling-threatened state).
Copyright Barb Harwood
In every day of the unknown there is a known, and it is God. He is the knowable in the unknowable.
copyright Barb Harwood
How do we get to know ourselves and the context of others using God’s help?
How does that work?
It works in that God does not allow us to rest on our self-justifications.
God gives Himself as someone we can come to know and to trust through the Spirit of Christ that quickens us.
This is the foundation of our connection with God, and results in our sincerely wanting—and seeking out—His counsel and guardrails.
In being our wisdom, He is most forthright.
His expectations are not for expectations’ sake: they are for our, and everyone else’s, sake.
When we are tuned in with God, we can then manage internal assumptions and motivations as they pertain to us personally, and outwardly as they pertain to others.
That’s when the perception of the past and the people in it grows objectively clear, and we discern the present and future realistically (as opposed to how we wish, imagine, wrongly perceive, or feel peer-pressured to interpret that it is).
That’s how how we get to know ourselves and the context of others, and close the book on the past in such a way so as not to repeat its motivations and mistakes going forward.
Copyright Barb Harwood
As Christians, other-centeredness is so pummeled into us that sometimes we become doormats, or ultra-serious martyrs, making “sacrifices” in the name of Christ that don’t afford ourselves a consideration equal to others.
Paul discusses this in a different context in Second Corinthians chapter eight when he talks about balance.
In other words, the idea is to not give one’s self away in the name of “other-centeredness” that results in mental and emotional depletion.
And I believe we can find the balance, finally, that Paul talks about only in a place where we can clear our hearts and minds and objectively question the often well-meaning but frequently manipulative (and self-centered) peer pressure of a pastor, congregation and other Christians.
This stepping back in order to ponder and consider is often necessary due to the one-way road of behavior and belief expectations from those more prominent and outspoken which often degrades and minimizes the originality, temperament and unique gifts of God that exist within the larger, diverse gathering.
What unfortunately happens, especially with new Christians or youth in Christian homes and churches, is that they feel they must forgo who they innately are in order to measure up to a humanly-Christianized ideal (and by "who they are" I am not talking about the sin nature but about the personhood creatively crafted by God Himself).
That ideal is typically groomed and advocated by those who are not, in fact, putting others before themselves, but instead fulfilling a worldview agenda, succumbing to church pride, or using numbers of conversion, giving and growth to affirm themselves. They preach their picture of Christian community and service in the fervent expectation that others get on board.
In truth, Christians, when taught to be other-centered, are not, in the Bible, told to lose their assertiveness, personalities, or personal lives. They are not told to neglect their minds, but to “test everything,” not in order to be rebellious, but to keep Jesus, God and His Spirit, first.
What it comes down to is, must I, as a Christian, really forfeit all of myself in lieu of others?
Certainly the answer is "yes" if this is my joy and willing heart and mind to do so! And we will gladly know this by an all-encompassing sense of peace and courage between ourselves and God. But I find this to be quite extraordinarily, and sincerely, rare.
And what if it is not my joy and willing heart and mind to reject everything I am and ever was in the name of “other-centeredness”? What if I do not have internal peace, especially with God?
Then we meet with Jesus, God and His Spirit and straighten things out. We ask God to bring us into a right understanding and put a right Spirit within us, no matter how long it takes.
And if it means stepping away, or going in a different direction from the one we’ve known, we allow God to handle the details by focusing on living in His grace and wisdom, keeping our conscience with Him as clear as we possibly can as we learn a fresh, maturing way.
If God indeed shows no partiality, if God loves all of us equally, then we, each one of us, matters equally.
And while yes, we are certainly to be other-centered, so is everyone else in the Christian community.
Jesus is emphatic when He highlights the two most important actions, the second of which is this:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Let’s not miss the respectfully foundational and underlying implication of Jesus here that we are to love ourself too.
Copyright Barb Harwood
Today’s quote is from Warren Wiersbe, who insightfully states:
“Self-evaluation can be a dangerous thing, because we can err in two directions:
Making ourselves better than we are,
or
Making ourselves worse than we really are.”
Of course, it goes without saying that God will certainly help us arrive at what is actually true for us at any point in our life: the best, the worst, and everything in between. Only then will we have something concrete to work with.
copyright Barb Harwood
