DARE TO BE REAL!!
It’s incredible to me that 90% of the WORD of God is a record of people’s failings!!!
We love to preach on them – talk about them – write copious sermons on the failings of the biblical characters and what we can learn from them. We think that when we do, that’s a good sermon!!!
Yet we don’t like to exhibit the same transparency – we like everyone to perceive us as perfect – having it all together – and yet that flys in the face of what God has filled 90% of His WORD with. We actually have more impact when we are transparent – and honest about our failings – it is then that the lessons can be learnt.
People who criticize others transparency need to throw out their Bibles!!!! The transparency of the Biblical characters we so love to preach on are there by divine purpose to take the veneer we so love to paint on our lives and strip it away and GET REAL – so that we might in fact learn something and impart something REAL to others.
Perhaps our lack of reallness is a 2way problem. We don’t really want to hear people’s struggles, so we usually avoid leading questions. We ask people how they are, but the reality is, that we don’t really want to know. Then if we are truly transparent we fear that we will be labeled as dysfunctional, weak, faithless. We fear that people won’t accept us, or spread our failing abroad.
Perhaps the solution is as follows:
For the listener – genuinely care for others, and don’t judge their failings, because when you look in the mirror – you have plenty of your own. Offer to pray with them, and be a person of integrity and keep a confidence. Recognize that we are all on a journey and at different places of revelation, so share our same struggles with them, if applicable, so they don’t feel like a failure and share what helped you in the same situation.
For the teller:
Firstly one needs revelation that we are all dysfunctional is some way, and are not alone. Failure is only failure, if we give up on taking active measures to deal with any given issue. God loves us warts and all; our failings do not define us.
