Talk it out!

Lately I’ve felt like my life is going to air on Adventures in Odyssey any day now. Am I the only one who grew up listening to that show? It’s a Christian kids’ radio program where each story line involves several people learning the same Biblical principle in different ways. The show always wraps up neatly with everyone coming to the same realization.

My lesson revolves around communication and loving people when you’re tired. At Bible camp last week, my group of 12 high school students tackled team-building challenges together for three days. Together we faced the Dancing Cable (where you hold onto each other and a few trees while edging along 50 meters of wire), the Electric Fence (a rope we had to hurdle over within a time limit), the Giant Shoes (long boards with room for all 12 pairs of feet), and about ten more. Each activity took a lot of encouragement, courage, and initiative. And towards the end, their endurance and patience were really being tried. The same toes being stepped on, over and over, were really demanding bitterness and discord by the last day. For me, those exhausted moments were among the most tender, as students learned to keep considering others’ needs after the novelty wore off.

I came home to about a million applications for these lessons, some ongoing, some more recent. Today alone, I was in on three different conversations with either staff or students that involved communicating your needs and hurts. Each individual problem was seemingly minor: a delay in transportation, a choice in phrasing, a disagreement in planning an upcoming event. Each problem provoked a significant reaction: tears, violence (by a student), feelings of worthlessness. Each injured party refused to bring it up to the offender at first, and yet found it impossible to just let go of the incident. Each reminded me of recent issues in my own heart.

I’m convinced these events are anything but minor: they can quickly become destructive. Communication is hard, especially when you’re stressed and tired. It’s getting hotter and schoolwork is piling up, and I’ve heard that this is the season for strained friendships. But disunity cripples you rapidly when you’re away from your normal supports and routines. In fact, disagreements with teammates are the #1 reason that missionaries leave the field. That scares me so much. It seems to me that Satan would love for us to chalk them up to the individuals involved: I must be oversensitive, she must be a control freak, he’s just so overbearing. We’re Christians; we should be nice. I tend to think I should just get over it, or they should just know better, and so it festers and accumulates in me. But doing that doesn’t acknowledge the discord as a spiritual battle and as a significant test of our faith.

The way I see it, God shows us off in the heavenly realms when we honor Him in the seemingly small issues. Just as Satan sees in these events the potential to shatter unity and interrupt ministry, God sees in them the potential to reveal beautiful selflessness and joy. It’s one thing to trust God in the “shark attacks” of spiritual tests; looking to Him for grace and truth in the “mosquito bites” is quite another. But I think learning to be honest and humble and gracious in the dozens of insignificant moments actually says more about God’s faithfulness than the most extreme crisis we could ever face. I want to be transparent with everyone around me and live drenched in thankfulness for God’s goodness.

And Lord, when you listen for the song of my life,
May it be, may it be a song so sweet…
- Caedmon’s Call