Support With Accountability

    There has been a rift created between two complementary actions, support and accountability. Normally these go hand in hand, but lately they have been made by a part of our society to be total and complete opposites. On Facebook you can like a post, love, wow, cry, and angry a post, but recently they created a new button on the reactions as a response to the pandemic and that is the care button. The care button is a virtual hug, I am not sure the exact amount of comfort the "virtual hug" gives, but am certain it varies to the person receiving it and the person reacting with it. There were outbursts of sarcasm and anger that accompanied the addition of one small reaction emoticon, there were joke made, and there was applause. The different reactions paints an interesting portrayal of where we are at as a society. 

    A friend of mine last week posted about a death in the family and had to preface the post with instructions on what she was looking for as reactions to the post. It seems that the standards for decency online have not been set as clearly, as it is in in-person public, rather than virtual public. We have multiple groups obsessing over holding others accountable while not holding themselves accountable for their inappropriate interactions with their so-called Facebook friends. It seems that the soap box is so easy to ascend these days that we climb it when it really is not necessary. It has gotten to the point where someone has to ask for support to avoid debate. They rarely have to ask for debate it is simply assumed every time something offensive goes up and with our current diversity of public opinion is just about everything. We have so often forgotten the difference that we offer accountability at inappropriate times because we believe they need to know, and offer support as a means of complete absolution and those that say contrary are not being supportive. Being honest and supportive are not opposites, we really just live in a world where those that avoid major conflict are viewed as compassionate, while those that are blunt, tend to be viewed as jerks.

    The truth is that all of us need someone that is willing to be both a source of criticism and a source for support. It is these people that help and encourage us to grow. In order to successfully grow a fruit tree, it must be both watered and pruned. God interacts with us in this way. Consistently God calls us out of places, habits, relationships, and also calls us into new places, new disciplines, and new valuable relationships. He is watering and pruning our souls. "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants." Isaiah 44:3 This is one example of God growing us through the water of His spirit.An example of his pruning activity in our lives comes from Jesus in John 15:2, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. God is both sustaining us through difficulties and also setting boundaries and letting us know when we have crossed those boundaries. This is precisely how we are called to love others, to bear one another's burdens Galatians 6:2 and to keep others to account in Luke 17:3 "Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,". No part of this extends to one attitude or another, it is really the law of love. 

    We are also to spur one another to good deeds. "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25 Spurring one another to good deeds is not the same as backslapping it is a pressure to do something that we would not otherwise do. Spurs were used to add pressure to horses so that they would cross water and tougher terrain than they would naturally be able to. So we have a biblical view of relationships that is slightly more complicated that the unofficial commandment found in many churches which is, thou shalt not offend, thou shalt not make waves, thou shalt not bother. Kindness bereft of intentional love is not kindness, but a special kind of apathy. A niceness that says I will only go with you so far and retreat, I will remain silent to a fault, or as long as I don't hurt you we can assume our relationship is good. Honestly I don't want a great many shallow relationships, although that is what I am sure to encounter naturally. I want to go deep with the people that I encounter. I want to change and hopefully use whatever influence I have to change others. If life is a deep exploration, those that keep us nice and warm on the surface are not doing us any favors, but those that are willing to dive deep with us and go where the pressure is great, the scenery is alien to the typical eye, and the creatures are strange; spur us on our quest and take us deeper into the great mystery and not into ourselves.

    This desire has to be in others. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has set eternity in the heart of man. So its no wonder when we live in a world of countless relationships that rarely run deeper than the chips in our phones that we are typically so unsatisfied by the world. Our hearts were built for larger capacity than the occasional "isn't that nice", or "bless her heart", or "I don't know where they got that from but..." It is no wonder why gossip is considered a sin. We take the broken image bearers of God and reduce them to their brokenness, or to an act, or interaction we had with them once. Our hearts have bigger capacity for love than that, especially after they have been redeemed and changed by Jesus Christ.

    So I would like to offer an invitation this month.  An invitation to follow someone who pushed and supported all those he met and never stopped loving even when it was hard. A warning however, his style of love was not strategic, that is to say it didn't end with a life retired on a beautiful ranch. He didn't get to be famous in his lifetime, though people did know him. He wasn't save at the last moment by his devoted and zealous followers. He was betrayed; left alone and stretched our on a cross. When he came back though, the men that returned and ate breakfast with him those few last times went out and changed the world. They received the message that was clear from Christ, that not even death will stop the love and grace he had for them, because even after his betrayal, death, and resurrection, he came back for them. His sheep, his brothers and sisters, his friends. 

    Dive deep into your relationships this season, don't be afraid of honesty, be afraid of what happens if you are never honest. Come ask me how I am, or tell me how I'm doing, and I will be honest with you and ask of you the same. You will be amazed at how much your kids and family will appreciate your honest self, even if it isn't the "you" you want or wish to be. Let's start fresh and create a culture of love for each other. Not naughty or nice, left or right, wrong or right, angry or afraid, but LOVE at all costs.