I’m right, right?

It’s better to become right than to be right. When you become right, you seek to change your views to accommodate the truth. When you try to BE right, you try to change the truth to accommodate your views. This is one of the differences between humility and pride.

Credibility

I don’t readily trust nice, polite people. I know myself well-enough to be aware of my many flaws. If someone agrees with whatever I say or pays me many compliments, my instinct is to assume that this person is a liar (whether they realize they’re doing it or not) and they have manipulative motivations. I would say that my instinct is generally right, based on my knowledge of my broken self.

I think Christians get love and politeness confused. Jesus was the single most loving person to have walked the planet and he was plenty impolite. Ask the Pharisees. Ask Peter.

The truth is we are imperfect, flawed people. There isn’t anything good about us for which we can claim credit. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. And based on the fact that people don’t tell me how crappy I am on a regular basis, I have to conclude that I’m surrounded by a lot of liars. The fact that I don’t tell people how crappy they are on a regular basis causes me to conclude that I’m a liar also.

Of course, the opposite isn’t true: just because you’re rude doesn’t make you loving. It’s just impossible to love imperfect people and always tell them stuff that makes them feel better.

The nature of the Truth is that it convicts imperfect people. Our egos–our pride–is/are grounded in lies. The Truth doesn’t appease our prideful natures. We have to die to ourselves, surrender to God, before we can like the Truth. Because the truth stands in opposition to the masks we wear and the inflated images we want people to have of us.

One point of pride for me is my insightfulness. I tend to think that I know a lot more than I really do. And sometimes I arrogantly flex that intellectual muscle to make people think more highly of me. That’s right, I’m an ass. Anyways, I was being bluntly honest with one of my friends in a way that wasn’t loving and served the purpose of cutting them down and building me up (because one of my recent revelations is that the truth is often blunt, as I’m talking about in this post). I was trying to be insightful. She called me out on it and it certainly didn’t serve the notion that I’m an insightful person. It did cater to the fact that I’m an insecure person who believes that I am, in fact, at the center of the universe. Her truthfully calling me out didn’t make me feel good about myself. It convicted me. It made me aware of the reality that I am not the ideal person that I think I am.

This post was written to provide affirmation to loving friends of broken people who know that the truth won’t make their friend happy, but must be said nonetheless. The Bible talks about believers supporting eachother and it recons it to “iron sharpening iron”. When iron sharpens other iron, there is a lot of friction, heat, and conflicting forces. It’s not an easy process–it’s very messy, like nearly every aspect of Christian spirituality. But it’s necessary.

I hope this blesses you in some way. Sincerely.

Love Somebody

This is a copy/paste of one of Derek’s Facebook notes.  We’ve been talking a lot about this lately and I’m really glad he wrote this. I know it’s something he’s been frustrated with lately, so it’s pretty raw, which is great. Here it is:

I have a lot of frustration with my world lately. I feel like no one wants to be honest. No one wants to seek the things that really matter. Everyone is so concerned with what everyone else thinks of them that they end up wearing a mask in every setting they’re in. Someone who is blatantly honest about the way they are feeling is seen as rude. It’s socially unacceptable. It makes people uncomfortable when someone shares what is really going on inside them. But isn’t that the most important? What is a friendship or relationship based on if that isn’t acceptable?

We all act like everything is 100% peachy all the time. There is no way that is reality. In a world as messed up as this one, someone we interact with on a daily basis is probably having a bad day for one reason or another. Either we don’t care enough to really ask someone how they’re really doing or when someone does ask us that question, we don’t say how we’re really feeling. We lie. We put on the happy mask that says everything in my life is great! How do we ever expect to help each other and really be there for each other if we aren’t transparent enough to tell people how we’re really doing? How do we ever expect other people to overcome struggle in their lives when we won’t even admit our own?

What is and isn’t socially acceptable annoys the crap out of me. If someone says “Come and talk to me if you need anything,” then mean it. It’s that simple. If you want to be there for someone, then be there for someone. That person is not usually going to ask you for help when they’re really down. They’re not going to want to talk about it. IF you’re a true friend, then love on them. Do something. Take initiative. It doesn’t mean you need to be the Dr. Phil in their lives. Just be there. It doesn’t take much too really show someone you care about them.

It seems to me that there are so many things that are backwards in my life. I would tell you that the friendships I have in my life are very important to me. I feel like they should be more important than a night of studying. Yet how easy is it to use school as an excuse to not spend time with someone? “Oh, believe me I would hang out with you, but I’ve got a busy next three weeks. How about sometime during Christmas break?” Congratulations. You’ve just succeeded in making someone feel like they don’t matter to you. Of course you’re busy. We’re all busy. Busy is easy to do in our society. It’s slowing down that’s hard. Take time to love somebody.

How the Hell should I title this?

Ugh… Will I ever conquer myself? I made great strides tonight (I’m writing this at 5AM)… I laid down pieces of me, confessing some of the deepest parts of my being to people and putting myself totally on the line. I mean these are parts of my depravity that I rarely let myself see, much less God, much less other human beings. The Truth kicks my ass. A lot. I’m totally vulnerable, but after having worked through it, I’m at peace with even the worst possible reactions to these confessions. I’m confident in myself again. I have some measure of my security and self identity in God where it needs to be and not in my masculinity, fake-spirituality/religiousness, or even my “normality”. I’ve allowed the Truth to wittle me down to a very little man, but a little man who can only rely on God for his identity.

Cliche as that sounds, it’s a great place to be, methinks. Blessed are the poor in spirit and stuff, right? I’m starting to understand why the first are last and the last are first. I’m starting to realize why there aren’t losers when Jesus wins, because Jesus makes himself a loser so we can win. I’m starting to realize that that’s how we are to live. Submissive to others. Vulnerable. I’m re-understanding this death-to-ourselves concept about which Paul spoke so passionately. I’m a little, itty-bitty man who thinks I’m a lot bigger with a lot more power, influence, and control than I really have. I can say that now. And I don’t give a damn if other people think that’s a handicap.

I’m secure, healthy, whole, mature as my heavenly Father is mature, at least for the time being. Depravity will probably seep in and mess with me for a while, but for now I’m resting in God. And there is peace.

Blessings,

Craig

Abrasive?

So I’m becoming a more abrasive person. I’ve always been passive-aggressive so that’s not saying a ton, but I’m learning to be more confrontational. I think it’s interesting to note that this is because I’m telling more truths and fewer lies and the nature of the truth is that it tends to rub people the wrong way. Or at least imperfect people. But mostly religious imperfect people, I think, because we trick ourselves into thinking we’re perfect so as to elevate ourselves, but real truth shames us. Truth knocks people down a few pegs. Having said that, I agree with roughly 98 percent of what this guy says on these interviews. More than that, I admire that he doesn’t neatly package the truth so as to make it offend us religious folks less. We need to be offended. Badly.

Part1
Part2

Enjoy.

PS: I found out about this via WorD.

Truth

My facebook status currently reads “Craig is learning about Truth.” Last week, Craig was learning about Love. It’s interesting to note that I couldn’t tell you when I stopped learning about Love and started learning about Truth. This is because, I think, the two flow together seamlessly. Just like all themes of Christianity (except it seems to me that good themes flow together on an opposite pole from bad themes like selfishness, pridefulness, and dishonesty).

Anyways, I’ve learned a lot about truth and about the lies I tell myself lately. It’s been an amazing past couple of weeks as I’ve realized that the truth is convicting to those of us who are perfect. It, like exercise to the body, makes us feel good about ourselves in a healthy fashion, unlike lies which, like sweets and excessive video gaming, are instantly gratifying and pleasurable. My decreasing fear of the Truth has caused me to put more of myself into relationships (that is, make myself more vulnerable in conversation–giving my friend power over me in a sense) which has yeilded fruit in the form of more trusting relationships and friends who are willing to tell me intimate details of their lives so that I can have something of them to love and protect. Truth is amazing.

Anyways, I regard everything pro-Christian with extreme skepticism as I’ve found more-often-than-not the case is that these slogans, movies, policies, etc are driven by hateful intentions and seek to elevate Christians above other social groups. This is the worst place for Christians. Christianity is good, but it should never be powerful in worldly ways. As such, it should not successfully be attractive to the world as many Churches try to make it (however, the opposite–that which is unattractive or boring is Godly–is not necessarily true).

All of this was going to point to a quote that I saw, but it’s deeper than I can really grasp so I won’t comment on what I don’t understand. But the above pretty much points to what I thought it meant. :p

Denial

This is where I spend most of my life.

This is also a major root as to why I’m dishonest with others.

When I stop trying to cover up the truths that I feel threaten me (that I’m not a “good” person, that I have a good understanding of God, that I’m cool, that I’m in control/have power, etc), I realize they’re not as scary and they’re also true of everyone.

I believe the same is true of you.

Also, when I’m honest with myself, I can be honest about myself with others which helps them realize truth isn’t that scary. It also lets you build a healthy, trusting relationship with that person.

I hate clichés but…

Honesty is the best policy. Damn.