Immediate Panic
When we concluded our first podcast episode I immediately panicked when I got into the car. I thought back on my friend’s story that I shared about leaving church for a year because of a volunteer scheduling misunderstanding and I worried I’d downplayed her pain (hey, hey, I am human…).
I decided to call her and ask her to think back on that time and I was happy to find that it did indeed all go down the way I recalled and she actually had some really poignant reflection on the experience that happened over 6 years ago.
The problem with pain is there’s always two sides of it.
And VIP isn’t going to help anyone if we aren’t constantly keeping that thought at the forefront.
My friend, being 6 years down the road, was able to look back and identify things she could’ve done differently and then of course do the more natural reaction, identify what the leader could’ve done differently. I think that’s a REALLY healthy way to deal with pain.
Healthy, but certainly not easy.
When we’re in the throws of hurt, rage, confusion, frustration, it’s easiest to only see our side of the pain (Matthew 7:5). But Core Value #1 of VIP requires us to remember that every other believer is just as much of a VIP as we are. It requires us to extend the same amount of grace to them as we’d like to extended to us (Colossians 3:13).
Because we’re Christ’s Body and we’re all interconnected (1 Corinthians 12:15-17), we must give the same benefit of the doubt to another person as we’d like to receive. We must extend the same opportunity for people clarify as we’d like to be given. And give people the same space to just be a human as we’d like to be given.
Does that mean you need to subject yourself to varying shades of abuse? Of course not. That’s not the Father’s heart towards you. But in terms of the normal day to day misunderstandings that arise because we live in a fallen world, give grace. Go the extra mile. Ask the tough and awkward questions (in my friend’s case) and clarify your actions if you sense you may have hurt someone’s (in the leader’s case).
Anything less than that is just not worth the price of the pain of confusion and isolation that comes when part of the body is severed and another is unknowingly holding the clippers (John 15:6 and Matthew 18:6).
S1.E1- Core Value #1
Scripture References
“Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”
Matthew 7:5 NLT
“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”
Colossians 3:13 NLT
“If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?”
1 Corinthians 12:15-17 NLT
“Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”
John 15:6 NLT
“But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Matthew 18:6 NLT