A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a citadel.
Proverbs 18:19 (NASB)
John had enough! “I am sick and tired of these people telling me how to think and what to do,” he said. Then it happened. He wrote a lengthy but scathing post on his Facebook page ripping apart the very foundations of his “friend’s” argument. Now he did not name any names…but it was clear what he was talking about. When the post came across his friend’s newsfeed…he was hurt. Deeply. Hurt.
“It was true,” John declared. “Every word.” He continued, “if people are so sensitive that they can’t handle a little truth, then they should just get off of Facebook or stop following me.” Mary (John’s wife) pressed him to call and apologize. John did and his friend said it was ok…but their relationship was a little icy from that point forward. It was just not the same. What’s worse, John’s friend hit a rough patch in his marriage a few months later and because his connection with John had been damaged, John didn’t find out until the papers were filed.
While the story is fictitious, it really does represent a “mash up” of similar tales that are all too real. I am afraid that in our “speak truth” culture, we do damage to relational bridges far more often than we realize.
“I’m not wearing a mask! They don’t help anything and it is all a conspiracy anyway.”
“People who won’t wear a mask are ignorant and haven’t seen the research. It’s a small thing to ask, if you really care about people around you!”
Suddenly, good friends can find themselves no longer “good friends” or “friends at all” over some snappy retort or emotionally charged allegation. And to what end?
Jesus created all of us for relationships. We are to love “one another” in the body. That’s a command. We are to engage our culture and seek to bring everyone we meet into a “growing, reproducing relationship with Jesus Christ.” Yet, we set fire to relational bridges with the kindling of opinions and fuel of hubris. That is often not our intention. We don’t want to offend a brother or damage our gospel bridge…but we often do. Proverbs reminds us over and over of the danger of unchecked words. Here in today’s proverb, we find another truth…that once the relationship is damaged, it is harder to be recovered than breaking into the gates around Fort Knox.
Recent Comments