One thing we don’t grasp about conflict, until this kind
occurs, is just how damaging the subtle stuff is.
To frame the discussion, imbibe the following quote:
“One doesn’t have to operate with great malice
to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”
— Charles M. Blow
Great malice is done against people. It does great harm, no
question about it. But far more common a situation it is that great harm is
done through ambivalence and indifference. Indeed, some have postulated that
the enemy of love is not fear or hate, but indifference.
Especially in the world of Christianity, where followers are
assumed as saved — as allegiants of the Lord Jesus, adherents of the gospel of
peace, aligned with loving neighbour as self, acquitted and regenerate of heart
— we expect that there will be due diligence given in the matters of
relationship.
On the one hand, we agree that we’re all sinners, fallen in
nature, bound to disappoint, hurt and betray; on the other hand, being
convicted of this, and committed to being subject to Jesus, we may live not for
ourselves, but for him, which is to live for others, provided that living for others doesn’t mean we lose ourselves in the
process because we’ve fallen foul of a toxic system within a relationship.
ENTERING A
PARADOX
Christians sin. Everyone does. But Christians at least understand that they need a doctor. To
not understand this is to not truly be Christian, i.e. a Christ follower.
Well, that is the theory. Knowing that the problem of sin
resides deep in the fissures of the heart — the emotions, the intellect, the will
— and accepting at salvation that Jesus must now be ‘Lord’ — we hopefully
realise that this faith in Jesus is a heavily relational faith!
Relationally
speaking, we are called to peace,
and we are called out from confusion,
for God is a God of peace and not confusion.
and we are called out from confusion,
for God is a God of peace and not confusion.
Yet, there are varying degrees of even us knowing our sin. We
all have blind spots in some cases.
Knowing our hearts is something that comes only when we give
up what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose. In terms of Luke 14:25-33,
to follow Jesus is to count everything but Christ loss, to commit to an
exclusive loyalty to the Lord alone, and to commit to a superior love — that which
is received, a perfect love, is also given. Everything else that is good is
given unto us for putting Christ first (read Matthew 6:33).
These are what we strive for.
… AND NOW TO THE
SUBTLETIES THAT CHAR US
As our hearts become more and more transformed into the likeness
of Christ, our sensitivities for others become more sensitive, where we
recognise the absence of empathy and understanding are as heinous as other more
vocal sins.
Indeed, we may even bear upon ourselves the harsher damage
done because people turned away, deliberately it often seems, from the very opportunities
they were presented with to love us. This compels us even more to love others
with the kind of compassion we did not receive from those we thought were well equipped
to love well.
We see how damaging indifference and ambivalence — a lack of
interest, care or passion that ordinarily should be evident — are. For those
who say they’re acquainted with Christ, we’re gobsmacked they don’t know their
gospel; that they may cherry-pick verses in or out to suit them.
It’s the chosen subtleties of selective, arbitrary, factional
love that hurt the most.
It’s that someone might choose not to care or to refuse to attempt
to understand that hurts the most.
It hurts most when a person we thought would care much couldn’t
care less.
No comments:
Post a Comment