Praxis
Praxis
Learning to Lament
We explore how naming and lamenting the impact of wrongful actions in Jesus's presence serves as the first step toward engaging in cruciform forgiveness. Developing this essential spiritual practice helps us move from bitterness to freedom.
• Why facing reality is essential for true forgiveness
• The cycle of enemy-making that traps us in unforgiveness
• How acknowledging pain allows healing rather than keeping us stuck
• Biblical examples of lament from David to Jesus himself
• The danger of spiritual bypassing when we minimize hurt
• How Jesus meets us in our pain when we invite him into our lament
• Personal examples of Jesus bringing healing through reimagining painful experiences
• The importance of growing our pain tolerance to increase emotional maturity
Take time this week to identify a wrong you've experienced, journal what happened, write a prayer of lament, and ask Jesus to speak to your pain. You can find resources for writing your own lament at on our website.
Welcome every now and then.
Speaker 2:Nailed it.
Speaker 3:Welcome every now and then.
Speaker 2:Welcome now and here.
Speaker 3:This is going to be a good one.
Speaker 2:This is going to be a great podcast. Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. We're in a series on the topic of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:Few topics are more central to the Christian faith. Through Jesus, god offers us forgiveness and invites us into a restored relationship. It's easy for us to rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness, yet we often have a really hard time practicing forgiveness ourselves. Rather than embracing the freedom and transformation that comes with forgiveness, including the possibility of reconciled relationship, we get stuck in bitterness and resentment, to our own detriment. So in this series, we're talking about how to practice and embody the forgiveness that Jesus invites and challenges us to live into. Whether it's learning how to receive God's forgiveness, or asking others to forgive you, or extending forgiveness to others, our hope and prayer is that you'd sense God inviting you deeper into practicing the way of Jesus with us. Today, we want to talk about the importance of naming and lamenting the impact of wrongful actions in Jesus's presence as the first step toward engaging in cruciform forgiveness. So that's where we're headed today. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Welcome everyone. My name is Katie, I'm Mac.
Speaker 3:I'm Josiah.
Speaker 1:All right. So we usually start these out with some sort of like conversation starter.
Speaker 1:Banter. Yeah, I was kind of coming up short this morning. You know, like I just you guys know I'm allergic to caffeine, so sometimes it takes a while for my brain to get going. So I went to chat gpt and said give me some conversation starters for a podcast. And there was a couple good ones, but I really liked this one. If you could swap lives with someone just for a day to see how they live, who would it be? So I can start. I was thinking it'd be really fun to be like a really good athlete, like just like a Simone Biles, just like fly, fly over the bars. That would be cool. Yeah, just crush it, coco Gauff, someone like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, someone with a lot of talent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe a really good skateboarder, that'd be fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, think about that. I mean, there could be spiritual answers there could, if you want to spiritualize it there could. I do think it would be cool to experience life in the shoes of someone who's in a completely different culture than me some different upbringing, different family, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could be a different part of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be fun to be like a professional athlete for a day and just see what their life is like, right, um, it'd be interesting to have to like navigate the political world, or you know what I mean or be a celebrity or whatever. And then there's all sorts of like more mundane things that like huh, I wonder what it would be like to be, I don't know, like a nobody in the slums of India. Like that'd be really interesting to experience that for a day.
Speaker 3:You'd learn a lot. Okay, do you know what else comes to my mind? This To experience that for a day, you learn a lot. Okay, do you know what else comes to my mind? This is dark People with different disorders. I think I would like to see what it's like to have. What is it called? Now? It's a disassociative identity disorder. You have multiple personalities, essentially, or someone who hears voices in their head. I would just want to know what it's like to have that happen. Yes, I don't want that happening every day in my life, but I think it would be fascinating to experience it.
Speaker 3:I think it would be so eye-opening.
Speaker 2:I think you've clarified my answer. I would want to spend one day as my son Griffin Because there's often the question for Josie and I like how much what's going on in his brain, how much is he comprehending? You know what I mean. And it'd be really helpful to have some access to that at times, you know, I mean sometimes he'll surprise you and sometimes you're like what is going on? You know, I mean sometimes he'll surprise you and sometimes you're like what is going on?
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, you are being a little punk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the other day at the he went to the dentist this new dentist for the first time and at the end the person, like one of the assistants, was like okay, go over to like the little treasure bucket for kids and pick out a toy, and just talking to him normal, and he's like okay, and walked over and did it. That was surprising to us because sometimes you wonder how much is he comprehending?
Speaker 1:how much does?
Speaker 2:he understand, because sometimes you will not do anything, that is interesting. And that would make a huge difference in my everyday life to go oh. I'm on the inside of his experience in a way that I'm currently not.
Speaker 3:So that reminds me. I have another one now. I have recently been listening to a podcast I find it very fascinating on the idea of telepathy, so don't discredit me completely right away. I already have. It has been proven in some ways. They've done tests with people, and so the idea that people could communicate telepathically is not necessarily a new thing.
Speaker 1:What does that mean again?
Speaker 3:It just means you can hear someone's thoughts, okay, but specifically, there is a group of people who are nonverbal in the autistic community Often have been, essentially there's been. There's ways for them to communicate with, like letter boards and stuff like that. They'll call them spellers. All speak of this idea in which they can hear each other and access each other in this place that many of them have separately, not knowing each other, called the place the Hill, and it's where they go in their minds to communicate with others. They will pray for each other. They will all talk about experiencing one another and encouraging each other.
Speaker 3:Many of them have experienced when someone they experience loss within their community. It could be happening halfway around the world, but they will start mourning even when they don't know it's happening. So anyway, no matter how much of it you think is proven, you can go on and listen to. There's doctors and scientists who are trying to study it and a lot of it. These are like blind tests, doing it as scientifically as possible, and they're able to communicate with each other and it goes deeper than that and it goes deeper than that. But all that to say is to be able to be someone who could access this hill in which they seem to be able to communicate. Would be really cool if it's real.
Speaker 2:Wild. I wouldn't be surprised by that I'm not like an expert in quantum mechanics or things like that but they have identified that there's a greater degree of connectivity to creation than we realize. And I'm thinking I don't have it off the top of my head, but there's one specific thing that I was thinking illustrates the point you're making. The other place my mind went to is that episode in the office where Jim is moving the coat rack you know what I mean with Pam's outfit to fool Dwight, it's really funny.
Speaker 2:All right, well, speaking DeFuel, dwight, it's really funny.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of telepathy, yeah. So before we get too far into the content, I wanted to point out how we've been beginning these episodes. So we're on the topic of forgiveness and each week that we've been recording these, we've been able to share a different feature story of forgiveness, and these are stories that are radical in nature and I think they help give us, it helps put things into perspective about what is possible in the realm of forgiveness, and it also inspires us to do the work of to actually do the work of forgiving others, even when it's really difficult. Last week we talked about Corrie Ten Boom. She was a concentration camp survivor and was able to get the opportunity to face one of the Nazi guards who had brutally abused her and her sister, and many others, obviously and he asked for her forgiveness. And it's such a powerful and inspiring story of the courage it takes to forgive someone, and I guess what stuck out to me was that in her retelling of this incident, she felt like she was unable to forgive in her own strength.
Speaker 3:She felt like she was unable to forgive in her own strength, but she chose, as she's having this inner dialogue, she chose to stretch out her hand and trusted that God could do what she couldn't do in her own strength, like an act of the will, even though she didn't feel like in her heart she could do so. And as she did, she describes like feeling God's love flow through her in an experience that she said was life-changing for her and for the other person. So I would love to know if either of you two have another story of some radical forgiveness that can inspire us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got one. I want to share a story that took place around a school shooting back in 2006. It occurred at West Nickel Mine School, which was a one-room schoolhouse in an Amish community. So if you're not familiar with the Amish, they're Christians, they belong to the Anabaptist tradition. They're known for sort of aggressively separating themselves from the world and broader culture. So they adopt a very simple lifestyle and reject modern technology, have very plain dress and things like that. So they're kind of depicted a little bit odd and they seem a little bit odd. But there's a strong emphasis in the Amish community on family and church life and specifically the teachings of Jesus. So in October of 2006, a shooter named Charles Carl Roberts IV ends up entering this school shortly after the kids had recess, and I'm not going to get into the scene of how things played out, but he ends up opening fire and killed six students ranging from the ages of six to 13. Four others were injured and hospitalized and then he ended up taking his own life. So a pretty horrendous incident. There was no crystal clear motive. This Roberts was 32 years old, he drove a milk truck and reportedly had a history of personal struggles, including the loss of a child and unresolved emotional trauma, seemed to be really angry at God about some of that stuff and he left behind a note that indicated he had grudges against God which may have contributed to the violent actions. But it's just a sad, obviously just a really sad incident. But here's what's significant it's how the community responded. So keep in mind again that Anabaptists are known for being extremely committed to the teachings of Jesus and the way of Jesus, and so here's how the community responded.
Speaker 2:On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the Amish girls who was killed in the shooting was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying we must not think evil of this man, so kind of going back to some of our cycle of enemy making. You can see him going. Hey, we can't turn an enemy out of this person. We need to remind ourselves that this is a person created in God's image. Another Amish father noted he had a mother and a wife and a soul, and now he's standing before a just God. Again, another shift towards humanizing this individual, a Roberts family spokesman said. An Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. One Amish man held Robert's sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. So that's the father of the shooter and Amish man held that man in his arms for over an hour bringing comfort to him. Amish community members visited and comforted the Robert's widow and comfort him On. Amish community members visited and comforted the Roberts widow, parents and the parent-in-law. The Amish also established a charitable fund for the family of the shooter, knowing they had lost a father, and about 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts funeral.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, and one of the things that stands out to me is that this was a communal response. I mean, in our previous stories, corrie, ten Boom and Ruby Bridges they're individuals who extended forgiveness and man. They have very inspiring stories, so in no way you know discrediting those or trying to minimize the impact. I mean they have very inspiring stories, so in no way you know discrediting those or trying to minimize the impact. I mean they're incredibly inspiring, courageous stories of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:But what stands out to me is that you have an entire community choosing forgiveness in the way of Jesus and it just makes me really curious about what kind of corporate formation did they undergo to be able to embody this together, rather than just maybe one courageous person who had attended to the teachings of Jesus being able to receive God's power to forgive that way. You know what I mean. If some horrible incident happened in our community, would we as a community have that type of communal response, because we're all submitting to the teachings of Jesus and have been formed into the way of Jesus? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't just happen, the day something happens. They were clearly, they were being formed spiritually long before that point.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that what was inside them came out.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Under when it mattered.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, yeah, so your name. Hey, this was a. They had been attending to their formation for a long time. Oftentimes, we get in these moments and something different comes out, because we haven't been attending to our own transformation along the way, because we haven't been attending to our own transformation along the way. So they had clearly been immersed in receiving and extending forgiveness to one another as a community, so much so that, together, all of them were able to embody this posture. I mean, that's not a significant number 30 members of the Amish community attended Robert's funeral.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and no one would have expected them to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, they got ridiculed for their forgiveness as counter to the way of justice, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess what comes to mind for me when you read, when you're recalling this story, mac, is that it sounds a lot like heaven.
Speaker 3:It sounds a lot like what heaven is going to be.
Speaker 3:All of us are going to be forgiven for things we've done wrong, and I believe that all of us are going to have to submit to the process of forgiving the others who have wronged us and wronged the people we love, and there's going to be no room for bitterness and hatred when all things are made right.
Speaker 3:And so I think it's a beautiful picture. It's like the sky's opening for like, hey, this is what it looks like in God's kingdom that everybody gets to experience forgiveness, that even the things that we've done wrong can be forgiven, that our slate can be wiped clean and recognizing that sin is not just something that we do, it's a force that has acted upon us, and I think God has compassion and love and grace and lots of empathy for those of us who are living on earth experiencing the effects and the impact of sin on our lives, and I think a big part of what it's going to mean to be a part of God's kingdom when everything is made right is going to be this type of stuff that we're all going to be able to reconcile, and this is what it looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and of course, as Jesus followers, we're called to embody the kingdom. Now this is what it looks like to join God's redemptive work in action in real time in the midst of a high stakes tragedy. As a community and I guess my challenge to our listeners is cross point could we be the kind of people who practice forgiveness so intentionally and have done the work of, you know, softening our hearts and learning how to do that, such that we're able to do it together when it matters, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what sticks out to me is how like subversive that response was right.
Speaker 1:Like, if the definition of subversive is is like undermining the established way that things work.
Speaker 1:The established way that things work when something like this happens is you get loud, you get right, mad, you get all the things that were probably present to some extent, naturally so, but you know, the fact that they were criticized for responding this way shows that their response didn't make sense to people. And while I think we would all assume that the normal response of getting upset, getting back, getting justice, getting revenge, would be the loud response that would draw attention to the situation, in fact this response was much louder. Like, the response of forgiveness and of extending peace and moving towards healing and reconciliation spoke volumes because it was subversive, it was not what you would expect, and so I think almost that response is the reason we're talking about the story today. Like, my hope is that this story would have a legacy because unfortunately, there are lots of school shootings. Right, it's a terrible, terrible tragedy, but my hope is that this one would speak volumes because that response is so unexpected, so subversive and it shows us something just, really, I think, really powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which, by the way. Let's just connect the dots. If you're going to follow Jesus, you're called to live subversively, you're supposed to give like the kingdom of God is upside down, and so we're giving witness to the kingdom and by living subversively in a broken world.
Speaker 1:And this is a great example of that.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, that's beautiful. It reminds me that, uh, of a, of a me, of a saying we have in our discipleship curriculum is that love is the most powerful force in the universe, and it's important for us to redeem that notion. So we look at stories like this that simple but powerful love makes way more waves than our own effort and power of coercion, or even in bitterness.
Speaker 3:So, thanks for sharing that, mac. So let's just set up today, today's episode, by going through a little bit of what we've been in the last several weeks. So we're sitting in this tension where, on the one hand, we know God loves and forgives us, but just because we know that we are supposed to forgive others in light of that, it doesn't mean that we're able to do so. We struggle with this as people, so kind of like the parable of the unmerciful servant that we've referenced we are so quick to forget how God's forgiveness has been so freely given to us and then we refuse to forgive others. So there's this tension and so far we've been dealing with what it looks like to get unstuck in this tension of unforgiveness.
Speaker 3:Our first episode we talked about what forgiveness is and isn't, and the reason why is that? Many of us, the reason why many of us resist forgiving others is because we confuse forgiveness with something it is not. So it's really important we get clear on what it is and isn't, and we spent some time digging into that. And then in our second episode, we talked about this the cycle of any, of enemy making or the flywheel of unforgiveness. Cycle of enemy making or the flywheel of unforgiveness. It's this vicious cycle where someone wrongs us and we respond by ruminating on that wrong, hardening our hearts towards the person, which over time, leads us to, for us, dehumanizing them, turning them into an enemy. And then it leaks out in the form of revenge, with varying degrees of harm and intensity. And then it leaks out in the form of revenge, with varying degrees of harm and intensity. And the more we get caught up in this cycle, the harder it is to get out.
Speaker 3:And then last week we focused on what does it look like to get out of that cycle of enemy making, where we fix our eyes on Jesus, which ends up being the first and probably the most important step in reclaiming your agency? Because between the stimulus of wrongdoing and your response, we believe we have a choice. Instead of jumping into the flywheel or this cycle of creating an enemy, we can choose something different. We can reclaim our agency and we do that by fixing our eyes on the person of Jesus and how he lived his life in this way. So today we're going to zoom in on what we would name as the first step in the process of forgiveness. So, once we've fixed our eyes on Jesus, we've chosen to move towards forgiveness, the first step is to simply name the wrong that was done and lament its impact in the presence of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, by the way, I talked with Adam and we have some diagrams of the cycle of enemy making and then the steps that we're gonna be outlining in the future episodes and stuff. So we'll put those in the show notes for people so that if, like, it's hard to listen and imagine what we're talking about, you can get sometimes the visual helps you know to be able to see that cycle. Um might help you kind of put together what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just don't look if you're driving.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, you're. Yeah, you're going to want to do this when you're not, um you know driving a 2000 pound um piece of metal.
Speaker 1:I often listen to podcasts when I'm driving, oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's get into it. We're saying once you've fixed your eyes on Jesus, which frees you from the cycle of enemy, making the first step in the process of forgiveness and now you're moving towards forgiveness is to well, you have to name what's happened, the wrong that's happened, the impact it had on you, and lament it in the presence of Jesus. And so why don't we start here? Why would you say it's important to name the wrong that happened? I mean, this first step is going to be to actually sit in the wrong that happened to you and the impact it had on you and then lament that in Jesus's presence. Why start here? Why is it important to name the wrong? What would you guys say?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the first thing I would name is a commitment to facing reality and we're going to avoid suppressing and pushing things away because, as people who follow Jesus, we're believing that God is real and he meets us where we really are, and so often we miss out on the way God is wanting to meet us in that space because we avoid facing reality as it really is. This is another little saying naming is taming. So if you're able to name what happened and itemize it down into real language that you can grasp, it has the effect of taking something that looks big and ethereal and like a big monster in your closet and brings it down into reality and brings it down into terms in which we can face. And really avoiding the reality of what happened always takes more energy than it actually takes to face it, and so we end up things end up getting sort of like pumped up and blown out of proportion in our minds because we avoid naming in reality what happened and the impact it had on me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have more to say about this as this conversation continues, about how you can meet God at the center, in the center of your pain. He's waiting there to meet you with his redemptive and healing love. But I want to be clear that what we're not saying is that facing reality isn't going to be uncomfortable or painful. Right, it's going to involve maybe experiencing some unpleasant emotions and feelings along the way, some unpleasant thoughts and memories, and I think for many people that's why they avoid going back to these hurts and pains is because now I kind of have to relive them a little bit, you know. But I think, josiah, you're naming something insightful, which is the cost of suppressing the past and the painful things that had happened there. In fact, both psychologically and physiologically. Well, there's a cost to that right. And physiologically, well, there's a cost to that right. I mean, psychologically, we know that it can cause depression and anxiety.
Speaker 2:If you've got a lot of undealt with pain in your background that's just sitting underneath the surface, it can lead to depression, anxiety. It can lead to emotional numbness. You try to numb that part and so now you're numb in other areas of life where you really need to be fully alive. Now you're numb in other areas of life where you really need to be fully alive. You can have intrusive flashbacks to things that were unpleasant, even though you're trying to forget them and keep them at a distance, and then physiologically it can get in the way of your cognitive functioning, you're not able to focus, it can cause memory issues, it can prevent you from getting good sleep, and I think so. I'm saying we need to learn how to go. Yes, this is gonna be hard and it's worth it. I remember one time I was sitting with my therapist and I can't remember what we were talking about, but it was some relational situation and I have the tendency to like try to think things through from like every angle and sort of ruminate on things.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, come on.
Speaker 2:And my therapist is awesome. She knows this about me too, but she said to me kind of like, as I was like I don't know what to do about this, and whatever she goes, perhaps continuing to think about all of this is preventing you from sitting with the uncomfortable feelings connected to the fact that what you're working so hard to prevent might actually happen Right. In other words, the work is not to solve this problem, mac. The work is for you to sit with the emotions, knowing that this might happen and dealing with the discomfort of that. And you know, I've got. I know one guy who has had a lot of tragedy in his life, a lot of hard things, and he hasn't dealt with it, not even close, and it's because he's afraid. If he looks at the hard and painful things he's experienced in life, he'll be swallowed up by that grief. And my voice to him, to the degree that I can exercise, it is to go. I know it's gonna be hard, but God's waiting for you there and will ensure you're not swallowed up by it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as you're saying that, it's a false sense of control we think we have, when we either hold onto it or we avoid it. In your mind, you're thinking you're able to control, but that sense of control you have is just avoiding, it creates more anxiety within you and it just doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's like you assume, okay, if this thing is really hard, that happened and I don't want to look at it, because if I look at it, if I sit with it, I might get stuck there. But in reality the opposite is true.
Speaker 1:right, by not going there you're more stuck by going there, you're actually able to then move towards healing and move through it. I was on the Peloton this morning on the bike and at the hardest part of the ride the instructor was like I know it's uncomfortable, stay in the discomfort. And it occurred to me like, ah, that's kind of like what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my friend Jim Harrington says this all the time. He's like if you want to grow your emotional maturity, you have to grow your pain tolerance. I like that. It's the only way it happens. If you want to grow your maturity as a human being, you have to grow your pain tolerance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no shortcuts around.
Speaker 2:No, because who we are, our emotional maturity um is exposed. When we're under pressure, when we're uncomfortable, it's not there. When we're having a perfect morning, sipping coffee decaf maybe, katie that's not where you're mature. It's easy to be composed in those moments, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Thick skin soft heart, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a good one, it gets stuck in my head a lot. Yeah. So, josiah, you and I both lead leadership intensives and at the beginning we start by dwelling in some missional axioms, and one of the axioms is God only meets us in reality, and I can't tell you how many times throughout the year that comes up with people, because it's like no God meets you in reality, like we got to start by getting present to reality, and a lot of times that's really hard, especially with this kind of stuff. Reality wins.
Speaker 2:That's why God meets us there. It's reality wins If you're suppressing and avoiding painful things. Those painful things didn't go away and they're winning. You know what I mean, so you've got to face it and it's going to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:What else would you guys say? Yeah, this one is related and might sound obvious, but I would say we have to acknowledge the pain that hurtful actions had on us. I know that it can be really easy to ignore or to minimize the impact that something hurtful had on us. At least for me it is, and I think sometimes, even being a follower of Jesus, we want to be people who, like extend grace to other people and overlook offense. And yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we do want to do that.
Speaker 1:We certainly don't want to go around looking for a reason to be offended, right Like looking under every rock for something to be upset about. But at the same time, stuff happens Like we're humans, we are messy, we just bump into each other, we hurt each other's feelings and when those things happen, we want to be rooted in truth. Right Like, as Josiah said, we want to be rooted in truth. We want to be rooted in reality, and I think that means starting by acknowledging the truth of what happened. I think, if anything, I might fall into the category of being, I don't know. I don't think I'm easily offended. I tend to be so easygoing that I'm sure at times I probably miss opportunities to recognize when something actually does hurt me or frustrate me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just out of touch. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just like we're constantly giving you zingers you should be attending to? Yeah, but I will say, on the times of my life I've been on the other end of this where I have unintentionally hurt someone else Like I can think of, especially with my husband, like early in our dating relationship he grew up in a family where it was like you don't really acknowledge that stuff. So he'd be like no, it's fine. No, it's fine. And I remember sometimes being like I know it's not fine, like I actually want to hear what I did, how it's impacting you.
Speaker 1:Are you upset Like what's going on? Like I really want to know because I want to try to not do that thing again. I want to be able to talk through it. I want our relationship to you, know, to be better and healthier and if we don't address it, we're never going to get to that point. We're going to keep running into each other in the same ways. And so I would say, as being on the other person of this and the other side of that, when you're in relationship with someone you really care about, you should actually want to know the way that you hurt someone and the impact it had on them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think what you're naming is it requires some emotional vulnerability to name that. Something hurt you, you know. It requires some courage and we don't like that to go. Yeah, what happened here had this impact on me and it was hurtful. You said, you used a phrase, you said we're human beings just crashing into each other, and I like what Steve Cuss says. He often reminds us that we have to be human sized and I think sometimes we feel this pressure to be sort of impervious to pain. Right, like other people's actions don't really affect me because I'm so grounded in my identity in Christ or whatever, whatever spin you want to put it on, because I'm so grounded in my identity in Christ or whatever spin you wanna put it on, which actually isn't how Jesus lived his life at all or how God is depicted throughout the scriptures. He is hurt by our actions and grieves those and laments those. We'll get into that more in a moment, but I think it's just worth saying hey, when people do or say things that are hurtful, part of being human is just to say this is what this did to me and I'm on a growth curve with this, and I'll give you an example. I remember.
Speaker 2:You know, in any church, when you've been at a church for a long time and both of you have been part of our community for a long time you see people come and go. Some people leave for normal reasons, you know they move or take a new job or whatever. Some people, though, they don't leave well, and the way they leave often is hurtful, and for a long time. Serving under my predecessor, those felt like like the maturity level when people left felt basically like a middle school breakup, like that was the maturity between both parties, and so when I became the lead pastor, I thought I really don't want to repeat that pattern of like every departure is treated like a middle school breakup. I want to be more gracious, I want to be more caring, I want to be more kind, and so for the first few years, whenever someone would leave, my default was to thank them for their participation in our community and maybe highlight some ways that they served. I really appreciate you and know that our doors are always open to you if you ever decide to return and bless them.
Speaker 2:And I don't think that was all bad I mean it did some good work for me or whatever but there was a moment when I was actually reading the gospels and I noticed when people walked away from Jesus, he often gave them a question. He would say or do something that was geared at their discipleship and formation, that was designed to basically haunt them at night In a good way. In a good way, yeah, because it was for them. Yeah, right, you know, like with Rich Young Ruler, like go and sell everything you have, like that is he probably. He walked away sad, but he probably thought about that a lot.
Speaker 2:We actually don't know what happened long-term, you know, who knows? But I just realized, hey, I'm missing a discipleship opportunity here. It's great to thank people for how they've participated in our community. I want to keep doing that and I want to remind them our doors are open and bless them. But to the degree their actions have been hurtful or how they're leaving is full of immaturity, I've started to kind of I don't know experiment with naming that. Hey, here's what you're doing and saying right now and that's hurtful to me and here's why. And to the degree we don't attend that, you're short-circuiting your discipleship and mine. And so I've tried that with a few people. It doesn't seem to be going great, but I feel like, hey, I'm growing my capacity to not just be like a punching bag that then blesses people, but more going. No, here's what you're doing, like. You're accusing us of being culturally complicit, even though we see ourselves as taking steps towards faithfulness, and now you're not willing to talk about it. Here's the impact of that.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. And it doesn't mean you won't get to the place in which you can bless them, right. It doesn't mean that you can't get to a spot where you're able to bless them in that sense, but you're unwilling to be ignorant, to bless them in that sense, but you're unwilling to be ignorant. And I think that ignorance is not Christ-like. I don't think that we have to be ignorant in order to forgive people.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, to the degree we're forgiving out of ignorance, we're not really forgiving.
Speaker 3:We're not actually forgiving. Yeah, that's what we talked about the last couple weeks. It's a surface-level forgiveness. You're not actually forgiving the thing that actually happened, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and maybe to highlight what the point of me sharing that illustration is, is that I noticed it took some more emotional vulnerability, instead of just thanking people, blessing them and you know, and letting them walk away. It took some. I had to grow in my emotional vulnerability, go timeout. What you're saying to me right now is hurtful, and here's why we're just doing the blessing thing. Actually, like was kind of like. I'm not saying it's not courageous, but less courageous for me. All right, maybe let me share one more reason why I think it's important that we start by really naming the wrong that happened, and that is that you're laying a foundation for accountability, should there be any reconciliation moving forward, okay. So explicitly naming a wrong that was done to you lays a foundation for accountability by bringing clarity, truth and responsibility to the situation. So you've named this.
Speaker 2:Accountability requires attending to reality, just what you were saying. We're not going to be ignorant about this. We're not going to pretend it didn't happen. Just as God meets us in reality, forgiveness requires attending to reality, okay, and so when we engage this work of naming what happened and its impact, here's what we're doing. We're naming the wrong, we're naming a true statement this is what happened and naming the wrong prevents confusion or denial. Right, it ensures that what happened is acknowledged as reality, making it hard to dismiss it or minimize it when you have a conversation with the other person. That make sense. So you're clarifying responsibility, you're clearly identifying what was done and by whom, and that places responsibility where it belongs, preventing vague accusations or misplaced blame. You're preventing avoidance when wrongdoing is unnamed or generalized, it allows the offender or others to evade responsibility. So specificity forces confrontation with the truth.
Speaker 2:Here's what actually happened and you're creating a pathway for repentance and repair. You're holding out the hope of reconciliation, because genuine reconciliation doesn't happen unless we actually deal with what transpired. And that's a big part of what has led me to naming when people depart like bless you, thank you, and so on, and what you're doing right now is hurtful and detrimental. For these reasons, now you're going to walk out the door, but I'm also laying a foundation that if you return, we're going to have to pick up the conversation there. Forgiveness is waiting on hopefully both directions, but we're going to have to deal with the things you said and did while you were leaving here. You know what I mean. Kind of setting a foundation. Go, here are the facts, here's where the responsibility lands, and so in the future, we're attending to that with the goal of reconciliation. Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 3:It also does the work of making sure that you're able to be wise and discerning in what your relationship moving forward can look like. I'm not saying that all these relationships, of course. Our vision is that full reconciliation, you can build trust, you can reconnect, and that's great. But sometimes people are not necessarily apologetic or maybe they're dangerous in some way and it's okay for you to forgive and extend the offer to reconciliation. But fully naming what happened allows you to make wise decisions in laying it out on the table so that this person can sort of maybe prove themselves in a way that their intent is for you, is for good, instead of continued abuse and manipulation and all those things.
Speaker 2:I think I hear what you're saying. You're saying it also gives clarity to you if it does lead to reconciliation, how quickly or if at all you might re-engage in trusting this person.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, kind of itemized. This is what it's going to take for reconciliation to take place, because I'm well aware of what happened and, if you have, you have to meet me there in X, y and Z, yep.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's say that we've done this. Something has hurt us or offended us or caused us relational pain, and we've done the hard work of acknowledging that pain, facing reality, moving towards accountability. The next step, I think once you have these thoughts, once you've started to do this work in your head, I think next, a good next step, is to get it down on paper. I don't know about you guys, but I'm a journaler, like I love journaling, and I think there's just something so powerful about giving kind of putting those words down and and really getting specific about what's in my mind. It helps me clarify, it helps me sit in the motions, it gives me something to reference back to in the future when I'm coming back to it.
Speaker 1:So I would just suggest that a good next step, a way to move forward, is to get out your journal and to write down all the things that we've talked about and record the impact that all of this has had on you. It's a really good practice. We talk about it a lot. The next step after you do that is to move into lament or to grieve all of this. So we're talking about lament. Why don't we just start by saying, like, what is it? Yeah? What is lament?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So again, we've made a case for why you have to attend to reality. I would echo what Katie's saying Get your journal out and write down the wrongs that happened as explicitly as you can. Here's what the person did, here's what the person said, and so on. So you have a record of what transpired and then you create space to go and here's how that impacted me in my life. And then we're going to create some space to lament that in Jesus's presence.
Speaker 2:So lament is simply a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. That's what a lament is. It's a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. And what is important to note is that lament is a distinct genre in the writings of scripture. So there are in the book of Psalms there's 150 Psalms and roughly one third of them are laments that genre. Some are personal laments, so they're an individual lamenting something that happened in their own life, and others are communal laments. They're written on behalf of the entire nation of Israel, like lamenting exile or something like that. Additionally, there are laments found in several books in the Bible. So the prophets, like Jeremiah and Habakkuk, contain laments. Job if you read the book of Job, there's laments in there and there's an entire book in the Old Testament called Lamentations. So lament is a literary genre and even forms a book in the Bible.
Speaker 2:It's also important to note that a lament is a form of prayer. So it's a genre, but it's also, at its heart, a prayer. In the Bible, lament is expressed to God and therefore is a form of prayer. It involves an honest crying out to God about some form of pain being experienced in life, like an injustice, a loss, an area of sin, and it also often includes a declaration of trust in God's faithfulness. So when you read the Psalms, for instance, when you read the Psalms that are laments, what you'll discover is there's, like some key components that all of them include. So there's actually six components that comprise a lament, and I'll just name them briefly.
Speaker 2:The first is it's addressed to God, so the lament is directed to God in some way. Secondly, the complaint or accusation is issued. So there's some complaint or crying out. That's a part of it, and this can happen in one of three directions, okay. So the first is a you complaint. So this is a complaint against God about how God has failed them or their perception that God has failed them. Okay. The second is a they complaint. This other person is doing this to me or they did this to me and I'm sort of lamenting that. And the. And the third one is then an I complaint, and this is where you maybe lament your own actions or wrong behavior.
Speaker 2:So it's addressed to God. Secondly, there's a complaint or accusation, either against God, someone else or something you did. Then there's a confession, and that is they confess their need for God's grace or forgiveness or intervention or whatever You're naming your dependency on God. Fourthly, you're asking for God's help. You're asking for God to do something on your behalf. Fifthly, they always end with some affirmation of trusting God or his leadership over life, and then, finally, they end in praise, which I think is interesting. So it starts with this address to God, this complaint or accusation, a confession, a request for help, but they always end with an affirmation of your trusting God and praising God. So let me give you an example.
Speaker 2:This is like a famous lament at Psalm 13.
Speaker 2:It says this I believe David wrote this how long, lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and, day after day, have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer. Lord, my God, give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death. And my enemy will say I have overcome him and my foes will rejoice when I fall, but I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me. You guys see kind of that flow right. So that's a lament, that's a lament. Now here's what's so interesting and I learned this from you, josiah You've encountered some people who cast shade on this practice of lamenting, which was new to me. I've never encountered that. So why is that? Why do some people? Why do you think that? Is that some people might resist this whole idea of? Hey, as Christians, we need to learn to lament the wrong that's been done to us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. So I think, to start I think it was more than just a few people I think is the culture, is the cultural waters I swam in when I was younger, and I think, overall, I was reflecting on this. I think, overall, the notion is that dwelling on the negative aspects of something that was done wrong to me is a waste of time, for multiple reasons. That was the notion. What are some of those reasons? Well, one, it can sound like complaining. We don't do that. We don't complain because everything's great, because Jesus saved us, and there's no reason to complain, okay. Another one would be we dismiss the notion of honesty in an effort to not gossip, and I think that the motivation is still the same. It's like oh, it's negative, we're going to reject it, and if we talk too much about it, we're essentially we're not forgiving them, or we're gossiping and we're going to reject that. So being honest isn't necessarily helpful in this frame of reference, right?
Speaker 3:Because it only leads to negativity and gossip and slander.
Speaker 1:I could see where that certainly would be a temptation.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's not a reason to dismiss the whole thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly yeah. And I think another reason why the negativity gets unnecessarily demonized is that it could cause you to hate that person even more, like if you dwell on what happened.
Speaker 3:It will ultimately lead to ruminating on how terrible that person is, and so if you bring it up and you want to talk about it, it's like, no, we've already forgiven them. Jesus forgave them, we're going to move on. And so ultimately it boils down to dwelling on this in this way, and being honest about it is going to produce negative results. And it could just be like an ease thing as well. It's easier to dismiss it all within Jesus forgave them. I have to forgive them, I'm done, and so there's a fear that doing this work of lamenting is just going to lead to bad results.
Speaker 2:Man. Okay, so would this be an overstatement? Because, as you and I have talked about this dynamic, the only label that I can think of for this type of behavior is, if we had to label it, it's spiritual bypassing. Right, Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual beliefs, practices or language to avoid dealing with difficult emotions. To avoid dealing with difficult emotions, unresolved wounds, painful realities. So it involves suppressing or dismissing negative feelings in favor of overly positive or detached spiritual perspectives. That's what bypassing is, spiritual bypassing, and it can lead to denial, emotional repression, all the things we were naming before of when we don't deal with reality. Here. Here's the cost associated with that you guys following.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, I do, and I agree. What stuck out to me, though, as you were talking, josiah, is that, under the three reasons you gave, there is something to affirm in each of those, like there's definitely like a nugget of truth of it. Yes, of course we don't want to gossip and yes, of course we don't want to dwell in like hard feelings towards someone, and so I would affirm some of those maybe underlying fears that are motivating that. But then our response, I think, is to say, okay, but these two aren't equated. Like just because you're acknowledging the truth of what happened and having hard conversations about hey, you hurt me and here's how it impacted me Like we can't just equate those and throw out the baby with the bathwater, right? So let's do the hard work of going.
Speaker 1:No, that's not what we're talking about. Yes, yes, yes, let's be aware of falling into those ditches, let's be aware of the red flags, of oh, you know what? I think maybe I'm talking to too many people about this and it's starting to look kind of like gossip, or I think I'm dwelling on this too much, like I think we do need to have our discernment up, but, but I think it's on us to do the hard work of going, yeah, but just sitting and acknowledging the reality is not that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's actually a really good thing, and let's not dismiss all of it out of otherwise legitimate concerns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear you and I think the nature of spiritual bypassing is that you're using a legitimate truth in the wrong way. So, for instance, let's say someone experiences a death in the family and you're like, well, you know they're in a better place, right, in an effort to like kind of get them over their grief. Yeah, that's using, maybe, a truth they probably are in a better place to bypass someone's emotional state. Okay, or forcing positivity in the name of forgiveness. You're still sitting with the messy impact that this person's actions had on you and there's still pain there, but we can't express that because you might start to hate that person. We've really forgiven. We remember we're. You're bypassing reality, right, in the name of forgiveness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and all these things that I named are like, like you were saying well, yeah, there are shadow sides to some of these things and and all of this can still be done in immaturity. So you can attempt to name a wrong out of an immature place and I think we'll probably get into it into the next section. But ultimately, lamenting isn't designed to be done apart from God's presence. You do it with Jesus and you offer those hurts and pains and just like David David isn't, you know, in the psalm he's naming those things, he's mad at God. He's expressing all of those things in God's presence and then is able to offer those things to God and hand it over, and so we're naming that. No, it's like we agree. Dwelling on the negativity and all those things can be a waste of time if we're not doing it in the presence of Jesus and in the company of people who are mature Jesus followers who we can trust.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are not saying this step is designed to keep you stuck in bitterness and resentment. No, that is not what we're saying. We're saying this is actually the first step towards honestly forgiving someone for what actually happened. But my concern is that, especially in talking with you, josiah, is that when we sort of minimize or downplay or gloss over some of these realities the hurts, the pains, et cetera we're actually not able to fully enter into forgiveness because of that. And in some, maybe church contexts that's actually celebrated as a sign of strong faith. You know that I can just kind of like breeze past the hurts and wrongs and just magically forgive this person and just like naming the impact, it takes some emotional vulnerability. I want to say that it takes some deeper faith to actually sit in the pain of what actually happened in Jesus's presence.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it takes some grit to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's hard. I mean again like I lead a leadership intensive and this is lament, is something that comes up every year, usually multiple times, because people have hurt and pain that they're holding onto, that they haven't faced. And I just used this example a couple of weeks ago with someone who was sort of unearthing some maybe unresolved hurt or pain or conflict, and I said, okay, think about it this way it's like you're sitting in a room, maybe you're sitting in your office at home and you hear something break, or like shatter in the other room, maybe you're working from home and your four-year-old is running around and you know that there's like some really fancy pottery and you hear it shatter and you're like, oh gosh, I don't even wanna go look at it.
Speaker 1:Like I just don't right, like it, like I just don't right, like I don't even want to acknowledge it. And then picture standing up, walking out the door and looking at the damage. Right, it's like you're, it's like you're facing it and you're, you're, you're looking at what happened. It takes some like bracing yourself, right, like it's easier just to like put headphones on and be telling like it didn't happen. But I said, this is kind of like what you're doing here. You're, you're looking at it and it is hard. It is hard, but it's only when you look at it that you can begin to heal and um and move through it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's a great analogy, because the underlying some of these reasons that I think people would push back is feel like you're making more of it than it is. They would see it as that. There there's a fear of like we're making more of it than it is. They would see it as that there's a fear of like we're making more of it than it is. So I can dismiss it, but in reality, what you're doing is you're actually making it less than it is and you're proportionately limiting how much healing you can experience when you're not able to name it with Jesus, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So maybe combining some of our points together, like what, katie, you were saying hey, if someone has this concern, there might be something legitimate to affirm, so you go, okay, but that's not what we're talking about. Hey, we're not talking about normalizing gossip or slander here. That's not what we're saying. And the other pivot is to go is to name, but here's the work that also does. You're blocking this from taking place, so not this. And if we did that, here's what it would lead to. The other thing I would just say is, like we see lament all over the New Testament. One frame of reference I sometimes hear is well, david was Old Testament, but we now have been saved by Jesus, so this is a whole different ballgame. Well, it's interesting because Jesus lamented. You know, jesus cries on the cross my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which was a lament Psalm, you know.
Speaker 1:Psalm 22.
Speaker 2:He wept over Jerusalem. As he's approaching Jerusalem and grieving their lack of repentance, he weeps over it. He weeps at his friend Lazarus's tomb, right. In fact, if we pick up with that story, it's not just that Jesus lamented, but he created conditions for other people to lament the pain and brokenness in the world, like in John 11, when his friend Lazarus died. And then we also see the New Testament church lamenting Like the first martyr was Stephen in Acts 8. And we were told that many devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. Huh, interesting. Oh, death, where's your sting? Well, clearly stung a little bit. Yeah, because we haven't experienced the resurrection yet.
Speaker 2:The early church mourns for James in Acts 12,. He was beheaded. Paul laments over his fellow Israelites and their stubbornness and refusal to embrace the Messiah in Romans 9. He also grieves over his departure with the church in Ephesus when he's going to Jerusalem. So it's really all over the place.
Speaker 2:So I guess what you're hearing us say is so far, what you've heard us say is hey, it's really important to get your journal out and name what actually happened with as much honesty and specificity as you can, as you can, and then name, create some space to name. Here's how that hurt. Here's the impact it happened on me and we've done this short detour. Now to go. Lament is okay, like it's a biblical thing that we're invited to do, and it's actually a sign of faith to bring this in, to express this grief to God in prayer and be open to his healing. Yeah, yeah, love it. And that leads to probably the final thing I think we should talk about, which is like what in the world does it look to be open to Jesus providing healing to you? In other words, what does it look like to write a lament out and then sit with that lament in Jesus's presence, asking him to heal the broken pieces and heal the pain that you've experienced along the way?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can think of a few different times in my life where I've sat with Jesus in the middle of hurt and pain, and what I remember from those moments is that I feel like I sensed his presence more strongly than I had at almost any other point in my life. That's what I remember. When I look back at those moments, like I always, you know, I know he's always there, but there was something unique about sitting with God in pain, in brokenness, in hurt, that I really felt his grace more powerfully than I had in other times, and it's something I can't totally explain. Obviously it is. Those are hard times and it's not like he removes the pain or hardship, like oh poof, you're fine, go, go about your day, but he meets us in the midst of it and he carries us and I think that's a really beautiful thing and you don't get that if you don't, if you don't meet him there.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, you've got to like write out the lament and then sit in Jesus's presence and then just see what Jesus might, how Jesus might show up and he might affirm the pain that you experienced. He might reveal his own heart, that he grieves what happened to you. I don't know, it's kind of up to Jesus to show up in a way that's unique to you in the situation. But I can tell you in my own life that I've experienced this many times and often the way that Jesus shows up for me actually changes my memory of what happened in a way that's redemptive. So let me give you just a couple examples and, katie, I've shared a few of these with your mom. We've been talking about this before, but I'll give you two examples.
Speaker 2:One example would be I, four years into being on staff, received a promotion to become like the associate lead pastor, sort of the executive pastor, and we announced that to the congregation, so they'd know like a change in responsibility, congregation. So they'd know like a change in responsibility. And at at the first service it was announced um, someone stood up and everybody then stood up and kind of gave me like a standing ovation, like yes, we agree with this, and whatever In between the two bigger services. Another staff member came up to me who was now. We went from peer to me being his boss, so there's some dynamics at play there. He said hey, I saw you got a standing ovation. I said yeah, I noticed that too. And he said well, just remember, it only takes one person to stand up and then everybody else feels obligated to yeah.
Speaker 1:That's rude, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:Thanks, yeah, Okay, cool, Thanks. So the next morning I was praying and I just sensed this is hard to explain, it's hard to talk about, like the inner movements of the spirit and how Jesus is showing up and communicating. But I just got this impression like, hey, you experienced a hurt and pain yesterday that I want to talk to you about and that conversation, that moment, hey, it only takes one person to stand up. Everybody else feels obligated. She came back to me and I sensed Jesus saying you know he was right, it only takes one person to stand up and everybody else then feels obligated to. And at that point I'm feeling like I'm like writing this in my journal Okay, this hurts. You're like are you trying to hurt my?
Speaker 1:hands Thanks.
Speaker 2:And Jesus said so let's go back to that moment and see who stood up first. And so I'm on the stage, kind of imagining the announcement, like replaying that moment, and I look out into the audience and I see Jesus in the front row and he stands up first and it was like this is my heart towards you, mac, this, yes, it only takes, but I'm the one who stood up and everybody else is following my lead here and now, when I think about that moment, like that's what I remember, I don't remember the stupid comment, hurtful comment. I just remember, like now, god actually used that to change the hurt into an affirmation, a validation of his heart in that moment.
Speaker 1:That's really cool.
Speaker 2:I remember another one this is, I've got a lot of these but another one was I remember it was like we had these monthly preaching meetings and this one happened to fall on a day right after I got done preaching and the lead pastor led those meetings and ended up kind of focusing on the ways that I'm not good at speaking. That felt like a big through line in the meeting. I'll spare the details of all that was communicated, but it hurt and it wasn't great. And I remember the next day, like later that week, again in prayer, and I just sensed Jesus saying, hey, there was something that caused you pain and hurt. And I said, yep, I remember that.
Speaker 2:Like that one stung when you pour your heart out and give your best in a sermon, then you're just ripped a new one. You know that's not fun. Anyway. So, similar to the first one, I sensed Jesus just saying let's go back to that moment, which is hard. Remember this is hard, like to go back to a moment where you experience pain, like it's not fun. I'd rather just move on.
Speaker 2:But I'm back in, like the conference room, and I see the lead pastor beginning to talk and looking at me and his face was a little bit red and I could tell he was getting amped up. And all of a sudden I just sensed Jesus coming around behind me and closing, like putting his hands over my ears, and so I see this person talking and using big gestures and all this stuff, but I can't hear anything, anything and I just sit there for a bit and then that little like monologue goes away and then I sense Jesus taking his hands away from my ears and then he whispered in my ear none of that was for you and none of that was actually about you. So so that's what I'm. I guess I'm saying that's what I mean when we talk about actually writing out a lament. Here's the pain I experienced.
Speaker 2:I have no idea how Jesus will show up for you. I don't. This is like impression stuff. This is using my imagination, like just trying to follow, like I sense Jesus is saying something. But I do think there are some through lines that I would maybe pull the thread on. One is almost all the time it goes back, it involves re-imagining what happened in light of Jesus's presence in the room that make sense. Oftentimes I feel prompted to go back to the hurtful incident, the hurtful moment, but this time where I at first thought Jesus was absent and I'm just like the recipient of pain typically for me I noticed Jesus reveals his presence in a way that reframes that pain to bring healing and sometimes even affirmation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I love about those two examples. I love a lot about them, but one thing that sticks out to me is that they so they were significant, right, but I'm guessing they weren't in like your top five or even top 10 hurtful moments of your life. They were just. They strike me as kind of everyday things that happened that I could see it being really easy to brush past. They were just. They strike me as kind of everyday things that happened that I could see it being really easy to brush past, like, oh, that was annoying.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was frustrating.
Speaker 1:But I know you. I know you have a kind of a daily practice of reviewing your day with God and what strikes me is how powerful it is that God wants us to meet us, even those small, seemingly maybe insignificant moments of hurt and pain, and provide his healing there. Like when we talk about forgiveness, I think my mind so often goes to like the big ones, like the big deep relational conflicts. Actually, I just had a conversation with someone who's been listening to the series on forgiveness. She goes to our church and she said, hey, I've been having a conflict with a coworker and I've been stuck in how to move forward and how to talk to her and all of that. And then I listened to your episode on forgiveness and I realized, huh, I'm actually sitting on some unforgiveness here and it's like, again, not a huge deal, it's not like there was anything deeply wounding, but I think it can be really, really powerful to just acknowledge those seemingly somewhat insignificant instances and allowing Jesus to meet them in there. I think that those are really cool stories.
Speaker 3:I just see this step as the evidence of God's agency within the matter, because it's really. It would be easy to look on paper. Of all the quote unquote steps, here's step one in unforgiveness or step one to forgiving. Step two, step three, those are all things we can do, quote unquote, on our own, and all of that is sort of setting the stage for Jesus being able to bring healing, which is ultimately what's going to make the difference. Yes, I mean think about even some of the big stories of forgiveness that we were naming.
Speaker 3:At the beginning of each of these episodes there was an agency piece of like hey, we're willing to take the step out, but there's a lot of trust that Jesus can actually heal things. Yeah, and you have to be willing I shouldn't say you have to. This, to me, is the most enticing invitation into all of this is that I could actually experience true healing with Jesus, not only for my own hurts, but be a part of someone else's story in receiving healing. And it invites Jesus not only into the process but to be. The whole point of the process is that Jesus could bring healing and make things right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and once you receive that healing, you know, next episode we're going to talk about the like what does it actually look like to extend forgiveness? So we're going to walk through a process for that, but notice how much easier it becomes. Like the staff member who made that stupid comment Well, now it's turned into an affirmation and it's been healed and so I don't have to pretend he didn't. But now I can forgive that and, if anything, my motive is to go what's in you that would make you say something like that? You know, like now, all of a sudden, I'm able to kind of get curious about what's going on in you that would make you say something like that.
Speaker 2:You know, like now, all of a sudden, I'm able to kind of get curious about what's going on in you that needs transformation here or go back to the preaching one. It's kind of the same thing. Like I no longer need to hear what you said. Jesus is going to block that out, so I can forgive you for but it's not really about me. What's going on for you? You know what I mean. And all of a sudden, that's a shift. That's a shift. It makes the act of forgiveness so much easier because we're doing it from a healed and transformed place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and just remember the words of Jesus and maybe this helps bring light as to what he meant that if you don't forgive others, your heavenly father won't forgive you. Is that a conditional promise or is it a revealing of how reality works, that you, stepping into the process of forgiving others, you in turn get to experience forgiveness and healing, and that person also does too. That it flows out of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that just provoked something for me, josiah. So I don't know if this is the right place to go or not, but I just have this impression right now that maybe there's someone listening and the thing you need to write down in your journal and the thing that you need to say here's the impact, and the lament isn't what someone else did to you, it's what you did to you. And but similarly, I wanna say, if you create space to sit with Jesus and lament your actions, it's impact. I won't, I would not be surprised if Jesus shows up in some way to reveal his love and his grace and his mercy and forgiveness in a way that completely reframes it for you and that's grace. All right, praxis time. We always want to end our episodes by going okay, we're not just listening to some fun content as great as both of you are at talking, we actually want to do some things. And actually today, out of all the episodes, this flows pretty naturally from our conversation, so let's just kind of lay it out there.
Speaker 3:Kind of three practices today yeah, the three practices are the three steps we named. But, yeah, so, first step, identify a wrong you've experienced and journal out what happened. This can be big, maybe you've got a big one you're sitting on and you've been avoiding. Then listen to the Spirit's leading and go there. It could be something small, like Katie you were mentioning that, hey, that some things can be wounding but that they seem insignificant. But there's still areas where Jesus wants to bring healing. And remember this takes courage.
Speaker 3:But we're inviting you to take the step of writing it down and maybe it's an itemized list, I don't know. Whatever is going to work the best for you, but writing it down allows us to do the work of not minimizing or exaggerating. We're literally writing it down, factually. This is what happened. So-and-so said this to me. This is how I felt after that, and just as itemized and as practical and detailed as you can, so that you can move on to the next step, which is yeah, and then I would say, write out a prayer of lament, which is something we've talked about, and Mackie referenced the Psalms.
Speaker 1:I think the Psalms are a great place to start, sometimes when you don't know where to start and you are having a hard time putting words to something, I think there's something really powerful about looking to someone else's words, like the Psalm that you read. I think it can give voice to something that you aren't fully able to articulate, and I've experienced that myself. But then go from there and write out your own prayer of lament. We have a resource on our website. If you go to crosspointwcom and then resources, you'll see a resource that actually walks you through the steps that Mac talked about for writing a lament.
Speaker 1:So addressing God, writing out your complaint against God, against yourself, against others, confessing your need for God's grace and forgiveness in your life, asking God for help, affirming your trust in God and then a praise to God what praise you can offer after God shows up. I think that those steps are really helpful. If you're just going okay, I wanna do this, but I don't know exactly how I would encourage you to go through that resource and actually follow those steps and again, write it down. Don't just think them, but write it down, and then you can come back to it and pray through it as often as you need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can do those first steps in Jesus's presence, asking him to guide you. So you know, writing out, hey, here's what happened and here's the impact it had on me, and asking Jesus to guide you as you write this lament as honestly, so that you're expressing yourself as honestly as you can. But then the third practice is just to ask Jesus to speak to your pain. And again, I know that some of the stories I've shared of how Jesus has done that in my life probably feel a little bit mysterious and it's hard to explain how that will happen. But I just believe the promise in the New Testament when you seek, you'll find. And I genuinely believe that when you create space to be with Jesus in your pain, he has a way of showing up and it may not show up the way you create space to be with Jesus in your pain. He has a way of showing up and it may not show up the way you expect him to. He may not show up the way you expect him to. He may not even show up right away. It might require you to sit in his presence for an extended period of time or a series of times until you sense what Jesus might have to say Don't get discouraged.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, when we aren't getting something specific in prayer, we feel like, well, what's the point? And then we give up. And I find in those moments sometimes those are the exact moments where my spiritual director says if you're not getting anything in prayer, don't leave five minutes before the miracle happens. We're not getting something out of prayer. Our tendency is to abort and be like, all right, well, I'm going to go back to living my life. No, no, no. There's something about staying with it, knowing that it will happen in Jesus's way and in Jesus's timing, and trust him with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember the silent prayer retreat we've been going the last several years. It's four days of not talking and praying and attempting to like meet with Jesus in this space imaginatively. It wasn't until the last session in which I felt like there was something significant happen, and in years past I'd been a little discouraged. But so anyway, it just reminded me of that, as you were saying.
Speaker 2:You experienced that, like the perseverance and steadfastness of sticking with it, god showed up more near the end than right away at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what sticks out to me again from your examples that you shared. Mac, like you wouldn't have experienced that healing that Jesus wanted to give you if you didn't carve out time really each day to reflect on that and to go back to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact, with both of those moments I don't even think I was aware that that's something. I mean, if you had asked me, yeah, but it was actually. I sensed Jesus prompting me to go. There's a hurt or wound that I want to talk to you about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, awesome. Thanks for joining us today, everybody. We hope you've enjoyed this and that this is inspiring and helpful to you in your own walk with Jesus. Next time, we're going to look at the next step, or what we would say is like the step in the process of extending forgiveness, which is to actually forgive the other person, having acknowledged what happened, its impact on you, and you've lamented all that and created space for Jesus to meet you and to bring healing. The next step is to literally extend forgiveness. So what does that look like? We're going to jump into it and we're excited to go over with you.
Speaker 2:Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community Church. You can find out more about the show and our church at crosspointwicom. If you have any questions, comments or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts.
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