You Do Not Understand

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 15)

I had a very interesting dream. In it, I left home very hurriedly. In fact it was like I stumbled on a very long bus and decided to ride it to wherever.

I then became a train and then the rails ended and it became stuck.

As we were pushing to get it unstuck I do not know where all my clothes went as I was left with my underpants.

Then we were in a very public place and I was the only naked person around. Yet there was nothing I could do because I did not know where to hide or get something to cover my nakedness.

I also could not cower in any corner as the place was packed and I needed to visit a few places like the toilet (bathroom) and offices. Interestingly, nobody there knew me.

Almost everybody I met lectured me even as others called me names as I still walked around in my naked state.

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, sought to know why I was naked.

When I woke up, I considered the fact that we are very quick to pass judgment, even on those we claim are judging others.

When was the last time you sought to understand a situation before giving a piece of your mind to someone you thought needed it?

Suppose someone in that whole crowd had sought to understand why this white haired man was walking naked? Yet who does that?

Speaking the truth in love means that that truth is clothed in love. In short that rebuke is shielded by love for the person it is directed to. Which of course means that it is meant to embrace the person it is directed to.

Of course the dream led me to think of Isaiah who for three years walked without even that underwear and what he had to endure beyond the embarrassment nakedness produces in a normal person, let alone a family man and servant of God.

Did his wife ‘love’ him? What about the royal family that he belonged to? Did they care to understand why he was that way?

Do you seek to understand people, especially before rebuking them? How do you rebuke people?

That is the single difference between shaming and Biblically rebuking.

Rebuking in love is restorative since it covers the ‘offender’ with compassion and its goal is bringing them back into the fold.

It therefore seeks to shield them from exposure as much as possible as their restoration is of utmost importance. And love does not seek to rub someone’s past on their face at a later time. Of course such rebuke has no interest in proving their superiority over the offender.

It can be compared to a person once rescued from drowning rescuing another person from drowning. Or have we forgotten this?

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

Love loves before, during and after rebuking. And due to that it seeks to understand beyond the fault as it reaches out to the person.

It doesn’t mean it is always received positively. Some interpret that love as folly and seek to take advantage of it to feign repentance to gain advantage. And it is only love that has the stamina and vision to see through that pretense. It does that because it remains when all the rest leave, either in contentment, consternation or contempt.

It goes without say that only love can reach meaningfully and effectively to the offender as it knows that the offense is eating at the offender as we see in Psalm 32.

But our generation has gone even beyond that to abomination. We seek to gain prominence through that exposure.

How many mint millions through sharing those juicy videos? How many become famous because they shared some concealed tidbits about someone.

I recently read a very sad story (in my eyes).

A person left a very respectable profession to sell her nakedness on the net. And her reason is what saddened me.

People will sell my naked pictures if they get them and I will get nothing anyway. Why not sell them myself and get all the money? And she gets some handsome piles of cash for it, enough to bid a good and respectable job goodbye.

Thus we have come from rebuking in love to shaming to gain advantage (and publicity and cash of course).

I know of pastors who use information divulged in secret to spice their sermons.

I once sought to help a fellow (and much older) minister understand a situation he was dealing with by giving him some details of the same in confidence and he blurted the same to the person who had shared it with me. It of course messed my relationship with that person. I don’t know whether I have regretted doing something like I did (still do to date) especially because I had told him that he was not allowed to use that information. I had trusted him because we had served together effectively for years.

I was foolish but I learnt my lesson.

But what I am saying is that speaking the truth or rebuking in love covers and never takes advantage.

I doubt anybody can tell someone rebuking in love that they do not understand because of the love that is encompassing the rebuke.

And it is not the soft, fluffy, compromising love we are talking about. It is a love that will see through the restoration.

That is the love that is able to get someone from any addiction because the addict feels safe in it to attempt change instead of explaining his addiction away.

A rebuke in love gives someone the shelter they need to attempt to change for God. Any other rebuke chases them away from God’s hands and grace.

But we have no options since we must rebuke.

The choice is between rebuking by pointing out the error or sin OR clothing our rebuke in love, ready to walk with the sinner if he does repent and covering them as they walk toward bearing the fruit of their repentance.

Do you understand? Or am I condescending?