Taking the risk of being honest will reap blessings
I don’t know what I was thinking. Committing to blogging 5 days in row, my first week on the job. As one might say when they order up too big of a meal, perhaps my eyes were bigger than my appetite! I promised you the combo platter, but I I guess I delivered it to you one taco short. I really apologize if any of you are disappointed in that. But I’m also ok with it because I know that none of you really are. Because you are my friends. And you get it. You get that I have another job. You get that I have 5 busy kids. You get that I am a scatter brain. And you get that I am giving this ministry everything that I’ve got. So, while I feel bad if I disappointed you, it’s for all those reasons that I don’t feel bad that I came up one blog post short last week. Sorry not sorry.
How many times have you felt sorry not sorry about something in your life? Where you truly do feel empathetic for a person that you may have disappointed, but you also don’t feel guilty for letting them down because you know that it was for all the right reasons. Perhaps it’s feeling bad that you can’t work late to help a coworker meet their deadline, but comfortable knowing it’s ok because they’ve come in an hour late the past three days. Or you feel bad at how much work your poor kid has to do to dig themselves out of the ten-foot-deep filth in their room, but you laugh at the tantrum they are throwing and close the door. There are lots of sorry not sorry moments we’ve experienced in life. And lots more to come.
But there is one area in our lives where we might not be sorry not sorry enough. Our friendships. We have been too afraid to disappoint our friends, even if we know that it could help start addressing those areas of their lives that need fixed. For some reason, this seems to be a much bigger risk. And the reason why?
Lie #5 - If I say anything, she might get mad and it may cost us our friendship
I don’t know about you, but most of my friendships are older than anyone sitting in my family room right now. In particular, my lifelong besties. These friends knew me back in the days of wetting the bed, rubix cubes and cabbage patch dolls. We stole parent’s cars, drank purple passion and did 180s in my 22-foot-long booger mobile. They knew the first boy I kissed and every love since. I’ve experienced almost all my life with them and I consider myself a lucky lady that they are going to be with me for the rest.
When we think about the value of friendships, it is just too hard to quantify. That’s why we tend to think that the costs are just too high when it comes to discussing the hard truths. But, aren’t the costs greater if we don’t?
We talked in the last blog post about the seeds we can plant in our friendships. The impact they could have. The miracles that could happen. In Galatians 6, Paul talks about us harvesting what we plant:
“Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.” Galatians 1-3 (NLT)
This verse reinforces the messages that we’ve been discussing from other passages, that we need to gently and humbly try to help our friends. But I think there is a deeper message we can take from this passage when it talks about being “too important”. You may be thinking “I don’t think I’m too important”. Especially with our friendships, we are not as likely to feel “too important” when it comes to the people we love the most. But it’s not unrealistic to be thinking, “our friendship is too important”. In that case, it is very relevant, because we are simply saying that our friendship in more important than doing God’s work. In this passage, God’s telling us that nothing is more important than obeying the law of Christ. And getting our hands dirty and taking a risk to share our friend’s burdens is what God is simply calling us to do.
I get that we are likely to feel very sorry when it comes to that initial disappointment that our friend may feel. But Galatians 6 goes on to say:
“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.” Galatians 6:9-10 (NLT)
Simply put, our friendships are not at risk if we do. Our friends are at risk if we don't.
I know this Friendship series has been a bit uncomfortable. Sorry not sorry. There’s a harvest of blessings waiting for us.
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