August 22--What It Takes To Get Along

Apparently it takes more relational currency to get along than I currently have.  I've been caught up in 2 pieces of trouble recently that have me running to today's passages for help:  Job 4-7, 1 Corinthians 14:2--40, Psalm 37:30-40, Proverbs 21:27.

Click here for the written post of today's episode.

Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

Click here for the FREE Yearly Bible Reading Plan she uses.  

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

August twenty two What it takes to get along. I won't be reading the scriptural references. For those, please check the written post. We had a time getting along. In Southern Speak, this does not mean that we had a good time. What we had was a hard time, a knockdown drag out time, a time I can still feel some shame about. Our youngest child did what nearly every youngest child feels compelled to do. He broke all the rules that his four obedient siblings had followed, or maybe they just hid breaking them better than he did. Regardless, he was always on the outs with me for one thing or another, his room, his grades, his driving, his partying, his curfew breaking. Take prom his junior year. He let us know, matter of factly, that he would be drinking alcohol on prom night, and he wanted to give us a heads up about it. We told him that drinking underage was not okay with us. This was not news, though we respected his honest disclosure, and sure enough he drank and left the cooler with the evidence inside the truck. I'm so disappointed that you drank and drove, I said afterward. Mom, we're not stupid, he said, insulted. We parked and drank. Charging him fines and grounding him didn't work as behavior modification. Neither did drug testing, adding chores to his list or taking away his Xbox. At our wit's end his freshman year in college, we kicked him out of the house over some shenanigans at Christmas. Whatever it takes to save him from himself, I thought to myself. In hindsight I see that this was not a good way to build our relationship, but in the moment when I was desperate, I grabbed hold of it. As you might have guessed, after we kicked him out, we lost him there for a bit. But two coincidental things conspired to bring him back. The first was COVID nineteen that spring and his college closed down, and where would he go if not home? No one was taking in other people's twenty year olds when the world was afraid to breathe, so we opened our door and held our breaths. The second coincidental thing was this. I was assigned to write an article by my editor about the prodigal son in the Bible. Naturally I wanted to do a good job, so I wallowed in that story with the prodigal for a week, feeling it from the prodigal's point of view, the pig farmers, the fathers, the servants, and the elder brothers, and I made a few observations that I didn't know quite what to do with. The father was so overjoyed to see his son when he finally came home that he ran out to meet him. He got a party started to celebrate him before he ever got around to saying, I'm so disappointed. In fact, the father never said anything about what his son had done. The son's confession and repentance were downright skimpy, and he'd done a lot of things much worse than underage drinking. He got swept up in his welcome home party, so they never hammered out any terms of his return either. All the study that I did came down to this. The son simply came home, and the father did everything else. The only thing I could see that warranted such a welcome from the father was that the son was finally back at home and breathing, nothing else. It took several days to process what sure looked like bad parenting, but I reminded myself that this was the story Jesus told about how his father loves us, so I was taking notes, and just to be clear, there was no urine collection for drug testing, no sniffing breath, no scolding, reprimanding, or repayment plan, no going through the trash and laundry to find evidence of God only knew what. So I made it my brand spanking new practice to be glad to have my son alive and breathing in our home, period, which meant I stopped hammering his drinking, vaping, gassing, and video gaming. I stopped telling him how to quarantine, I stopped criticizing his judgment, his attitude, his choices, his friends, and I stopped demanding he do chores and started asking. And over time he responded. He began sending me a text here and there or a funny video. He caught me up on his friends. We began cooking meals together. Last year he bought tickets for my birthday and took me to a concert. One by one he's handled the issues I thought he needed help with, while I've teared

Job 4-7

SPEAKER_00 4:27

from the sidelines and prayed a lot. Our prodigal has surely changed, but the person who's changed the most isn't our son. It's been me. Love had to break me so it could remake me, so we could get along. Today's passages say what else it takes to get along. The Old Testament chapters are Job four through seven. With friends like these, who needs enemies? The book of Job is daunting with its forty two chapters of bad advice from bad friends and a lot of God's not fair from Job. I have to admit, I wasn't eager to jump in. At first what Eliphaz said sounded reasonable until I realized, wait, Job had just lost his wealth, his health, and all ten of his children, and rather than commiserate, Eliphaz tried to make Job's experience understandable as in, let me explain what's going on so you can benefit. He even proposed what he perceived as the obvious takeaway. Job's suffering happened because of his sin, so the solution was simple. Job must repent. Not only was Eliphaz heartless, he was arrogant and detached, speaking as he did from his lofty perch above it all. He assumed that because Job's losses are tragic, he must not be living right. After all, God's not unjust, right? Eliphaz wanted to make sense of things, so he invented a reason for Job's suffering, because if there wasn't a good reason then gulp, this same thing could happen to anyone, and that possibility was much too terrifying. When Eliphaz dumped his load on Job, it wasn't just unhelpful, it was hurtful. Job called him out for his quote pious bluster, end quote, and heartlessness, saying that Eliphaz treated his words of anguish, quote, as so much hot air, what's more Job says God is treating him unjustly, and he wants to know why, and he will spend the rest of his book figuring it out. Their relational maelstrom resonates this morning. Don't we have friends who misunderstand and misjudge us this way? Just last night someone said something too heavy for me, and I've been trying to let God carry it. Just this morning peace evaporated here. I want to keep my heart open, but what I'd really rather do is judge them right back and melt down myself, except that nothing good comes from getting on that train. Tit for tat never promotes peace or joy, and certainly not relationships. These are my friends after all, and I want to communicate love to them regardless of how I'm treated, which means I won't defend or explain myself. I'll seek to understand what's going on in their worlds rather than seek their understanding of mine. I'll even forgive the hard things that were said that aren't true. All of that is good, God, no question, but I can't do one piece of it, and I don't even want to. But they're not God for you, I thought or heard, or thought I heard. Their disapproval, their poor opinion, their accusation, you don't have to let them rock you. They don't have the last word, and their perspective isn't the only one. You don't have to agree with them to care that they're hurting. Care that they're hurting? Are you kidding? I want to wallow in my own pain and pontificate like Job. I want to decide what's wrong with them and tell them like Eliphaz, I know you want me to be like Jesus, but I can't. I sat here waiting, not knowing what else to say, and these words came to mind, wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord, end quote. I found them at the end of Psalm twenty seven. In case we don't catch them right away, the words wait for the Lord are repeated, which I take to mean not to wait for equal time to have my say, not to wait for my own resolution, not to wait for vindication or even understanding, but to wait for him, wait for the Lord. He is all I need, and he will do what I need. For some reason Julian of Norwich's words bubble up in memory, quote, all shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, end quote. And this is encouraging because while I wait, he makes everything right. The pressure to fix these breaks in relationships is on him and not on me. That helps. So I thank God for the confidence that all shall be well and all things will be made right, and that included this trouble with my friends because I was counting on him and he wouldn't fail me. With all of that pouring inside my head and heart, I felt full, and I could feel something opening up inside me, making me roomy. In my mind's eye a light came closer or clearer, it's hard to say which, and it dawned all at once that my goal with my friends is not to be heard but to hear, not to be understood, but to understand, not to be loved, but to love, not to find safety, but to facilitate it, not to be right, but to remain in relationship. So I wrote a short email of sorrow and support to my friend from last night, saying nothing of my hurt, because God had taken it and filled me up tight. Surprisingly this was all it took for she

1 Corinthians 14:20-40

SPEAKER_00 9:52

and I to mend. We are good again, and all is forgiven. But the trouble of the morning is unresolved as of yet, but the day is young and God is still on his throne. My hope is in him to bring peace back around, not in us. What it takes to get along is trusting God to enable you as you wait for him. The New Testament passage is 1 Corinthians fourteen twenty to forty. When it comes to getting along in our spiritual communities, Paul says that quote, everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way, end quote. We don't assume we have the final word on God's word, we don't insist on how another's faith journey should look, and we don't interrupt worship. Rather, we should be quote, courteous and considerate in everything, end quote. And when the tift over the ladies' room windows is rolled away, when the acclaim for the men's breakfast is spread around the table, when the nursery schedule is filled up with helpers who actually show up, everyone benefits. This is what fitting and orderly, courteous and considerate look like. It's hard to take the humble road when others are pushing and shoving for notice, but everyone notices the person who serves in the lowliest job with

Psalm 37:30-40, Prayer, Proverbs 21:27

SPEAKER_00 11:09

love. There's no competition for being on the bottom, and if it works for our church communities, wouldn't it work in our family and friend communities too? Kind and courteous service blesses everyone it touches. What it takes to get along is having the humility that comes from having a great love. From Psalm thirty seven, thirty to forty. But how do we get along with enemies? David tells us, first off, know God's word. David says the righteous heart pumps God's word, quote, like blood through his veins, end quote. He chews on wisdom and rolls virtue around on his tongue. He needs all the help he can get after all, and real help can be found in the words of the Bible. Second, actively wait for God, meaning engage yourself in trusting him while you wait. David trusted God to handle the bullies and bad guys that assailed him, and God did. He saw to it that David was vindicated while his enemies were knocked flat. Third, run to God. David is given a quote, spacious free life, end quote, because he runs to God and God protects him. David's encouragement for enduring an enemy is this, quote, God strengthened, we're delivered from evil. When we run to him, he saves us, end quote. David's strategy for dealing with enemies worked for him, and it works for me too. I'm hanging on to it myself this morning. We don't have what it takes to get along with enemies, but God does, and he will keep his word to come through for us. God, thank you for doing the jackhammering and heavy lifting in me and in my relationships. It's a painful process, but worth what it costs. Give me a willing spirit to sustain me. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 21 27. Posers hope for accolades for their piety, but everyone smells their pretense as stingy. Passages in Job, 1 Corinthians, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartleaban, Roebuck.