J. Kevin Butcher's Blog

What would it be like if when a brother or sister in Jesus spoke a hard word to us…instead of taking the word as intended to expose our weakness…we took the word as intended to protect us from our weakness?

I think this was the intent in the first century church – note when the New Testament documents command us to “admonish one another” [admonish = to warn about sin – Romans 15:14]] or “exhort one another” [exhort = to challenge toward a goal – Hebrews 10:24-25].  The call is obviously NOT to judge one another or further wound one another or to make a brother or sister feel foolish or less than.  But that’s pretty much how most “tough words” seem to be taken in the body of Christ today.  “Hey, who do you think you are to say that to me?” or “What gives you the right?” or “Get the log out of your own eye”.  Or maybe we simply listen while silently and resentfully saying, “screw you…you don’t know me…”, sometimes because we are angry and defensive…and sometimes because we are hurt and afraid.

And I get it because sometimes our motives for speaking hard words to one another are less than pure.  We speak out of what WE need, not out of what is good for those we are speaking to.  And sometimes our methods are less than kind and gracious so even well-intentioned hard words sound and feel cutting and hurtful.  But what if the love of our Abba Father [first of all] begins to permeate our own hearts so that we start to be “filled with all the fullness of God” [Ephesians 3:19] so that our lives really aren’t about “us” anymore but what our brothers and sisters need from us…even hard words of challenge?  And what if we then began to trust one another that when we speak hard words to one another we are speaking them out of “other’s centered love” and there is no intent to expose our nakedness…but to help cover our nakedness?  That there is no intent to exploit or embarrass us in our weakness…but to help protect us in our wound and weakness until such time as our God heals us or strengthens us in our weakness?  In fact, what if these hard words became a source for healing our weakness?

We are all blind to certain areas of pain and mess in our lives.  We desperately need each other to help one another become whole.  In fact, without one another, can we ever become healed and whole?  So it seems to me we have a choice: to continue to be afraid to give and receive hard words in our relationships with our brothers and sisters in Jesus…and stay stuck and unhealed…OR to move toward a security in the Father’s love that allows us to risk the hard words…knowing that we mean no harm and only want to help protect one another from our weaknesses.

Amazing when a group of men get together and instead of talking a whole lot of fake macho crap, we talk instead about what it really means to get honest with ourselves, God and each other concerning what is really going on in our lives.

That’s what happened this last weekend at Echo Grove about an hour north of Detroit with 50 guys of various ages, sizes, backgrounds, colors, denominations and experiences…what we had and have in common is a desire to grow ourselves up…to stop being stuck as “little boys in men’s bodies”…and to begin the process of growing up in Jesus Christ.

We talked about the emptiness inside…

The shame that tries to fill that emptiness with painful behavior in every relationship – our relationship with ourselves, with our God and with others…

The wounds from our past that have sucked the life out of us, leaving us empty and stuck in emotional and spiritual childhood for way too long….

Learning to hear the voice of our Abba, our Dada, our Father that affirms and fills our emptiness…

The grieving that can cleanse our wounds and lead to forgiveness…letting go…and freedom…

We took risks to open ourselves up to one another – confessing our sin and wounds to one another so that we could experience the healing that comes from intimate connection with a brother…

We celebrated the body and blood of Jesus – “by His stripes we are being healed”…

We wept before God…and before and with our brothers…

We laughed and joked and encouraged and played and ate and rested and sang and lived together…

And then we drove back home to Detroit, pledging to continue the journey of growing ourselves up, together, in Jesus’ name…for our sake, for the sake of our wives, our girlfriends, our sisters, for the sake of our friends and our enemies, for the sake of the King and His Kingdom…

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man…I put away childish things…”