Tough Love Is Still Love

I am sure most of us are familiar with the phrase "tough love", but for those of us who have not been familiarized with this concept, "tough love" is essentially where we give constructive criticism to someone who means a lot to us. It can be by any number of mean, direct conversation, the silent treatment, forcing/encouraging us to do things we don't want to do, but we need to do to better ourselves, etc. Some people take tough love as being a way just to be abrasive or tell the person how wrong they are. In other words, instead of being constructive in their criticism and calling out, they forget the "love" part, and they are just "tough." Tough love though is an essential part of the Christian life, and I will explain what I mean if you are confused how it could possibly be good.

I think this tough love concept is something that we need to hone and perfect in all of our relationships as Christians. We need to be able to show tough love with other believers in our Christian community and also realize, and this is going to startle a few of you I think, that God is going to show us tough love. The thing to keep in mind with that, is that tough LOVE is still LOVE. If you tell me that "oh, Hunter, there is no way you know what you are talking about now. God is only the lovey dovey kind of love with unicorns and butterflies." I would challenge you to show me where it says that in scripture. I am not claiming to know exactly how God works, but to me it should make sense that as we are created in God's image, we can look at how we tend to love, and that is just merely a SMALL glimpse of how his love works.

If we understand that in truly loving someone, we have to call them out when they are hurting themselves or others, I should think that the creator of the universe would notice that too and the difference with his love is that he will actually always step in and help us. God is truly involved in our lives and loves us. In his love, if we are not doing things right or are down a wrong path, he will help us, but he doesn't just pick us up and put us on the right path. God will guide us and lead us back to where he wants us and where we should be. How he does this can be any number of ways, but don't you think that showing a "tough love" to us would be an efficient way to get us where we need to be and also break us of the bad thing we were doing or to help us learn a lesson to stay on the right path? I just want to make sure that we all understand this, me included, that just because God isn't making us feel all warm and fuzzy inside 24/7 does not mean that he isn't showing us the love he has and getting us to become the creatures he intended us to be.

I think I have gotten the point of God's tough love across, but now I think it is also important to make a quick note about our use of tough love with each other. I encourage tough love, but make sure like I mentioned before that you don't forget the "love" part of it. Using it effectively can be very beneficial for those around you, but if you are just plain mean to them, it can make things infinitely worse. An example would be when someone is struggling with some issue, and instead of just coddling them and telling them it's going to be okay and blah blah blah, you are real and honest and just tell them that it's not okay what they are dealing with and they need to do something about it. Explain to them that this thing they are struggling with is hurting their relationship with God and with others and that they need to rely on God to help them get back on the right track. Don't forget to mention to them that although you see their need to fix things, you and the rest of their friends are there to help and to pray for them. A support system isn't worth much if we are only their for each other to tell each other how great we are and not to let each other know when we are slipping down the into places we shouldn't be. In short, it is all in the approach.

I hope and pray that this has somehow helped you guys to better understand how and what tough love works. This is just what I understand of it and how I see it after much prayer and reflection about it. I have wanted to write a post about this for a while and after much prayer and thought, this is what I felt called to write. I hope God has spoken through me so that you feel more comfortable with the concept.

Hearing Problems?

Before I start this post, I want to remind everyone, that in no way are my posts necessarily the official stance of any branch of the church or any denomination or anything like that. They are merely my understanding of God based on experience, scripture, and other theologians.

So this is kind of a continuation of the post about prayer. This is more directed towards the hearing from God aspect of prayer. I am not going to take the usual approach of looking at ways in which we DO hear from God, but instead look at ways in which we hinder ourselves from hearing God speaking to us. Some of these are things that we don't realize are hindering us, but some are things we do because we want to be secure in ourselves and not have to be completely dependent on our Father in Heaven.

First of all, is when we don't take time to stop and listen. This is so obvious, yet we often don't think about this. How are we going to be able to hear from God if we are not stopping to listen for his response and guidance for us? That's like asking a question to an academic adviser, then getting up and walking out of the room before they tell you what classes they feel you should take next semester. Don't ask God to guide you to your perfect spouse, to help you make a financial decision, or to help you pick a college, then not listen for his response. We tend to fill our lives and our schedules to the brim that we have no time for our relationship with God. Make some time in your daily schedule to both pray to God, but to also listen back.

People often find the issue that when things are going well for them, and even sometimes when things are just alright, we have the tendency to think we are not in need of anything anymore. "We have everything we need." This is not true at all and will not be until we are in Heaven. We always need God and we always need him to continue providing us with his grace and his blessings. We need to fight against this mindset and always remember our need for him.

Along with the taking time in our schedule to listen to God, we need to take time to rest. I know more than enough people who are burnt out and just physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. We live in a time and society where we feel like we always need to be on-the-go and doing something. What about taking care of ourselves though? Sure, exercise is good and you should do that, but maybe some days of the week, use your exercise time to take a nap. Or go to bed early instead of staying up to watch the ball game. Trust me, that's a hard one for me. Rest is important and vital. Even God rested. Maybe he didn't need to, but in doing so, he showed us that WE need to. If we aren't rested, we can't be the creature God created us to be and can't worship him as he intended.

I am sure that we all can relate to the feeling of wanting God to fit how we need him or want him to be. We want God to fit OUR lives rather than fit our lives to what God has for us. Doing this is essentially telling God that we know better than he does what is best for us. Does that even sound remotely like a good idea to be living your life in that way? Didn't think so. I know we feel like we know ourselves well enough to know what's best for us, but I promise you, God knows you infinitely more intimately better than you will ever understand yourself. Trust him with your life, rather than making him fit your expectations and desires. In this mindset, even if we do somehow let God speak to us, it could upset us and what we ourselves are trying to gain in this world.

The next thing is to be "religious." What I mean by this is like the Pharisees. Religion in this sense is being overly committed to the law and having the mindset and tunnel vision to think that you can find all the answers. We have to realize that we are saved by God through Christ, not the laws and scriptures. We are told about this salvation and father through the scriptures and guidelines, but they themselves are not the source of salvation or grace. When we find ourselves putting our faith in the Bible itself or the laws, or theologies, or philosophies of Christianity rather than Christ, we are missing the point and will never correctly hear or interpret God's guidance or voice.

Spiritual warfare is real and we have to acknowledge it. If we ignore it, it could be fatal. We are told in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 12-13, that we are not fighting wars against flesh or other people, but rather a more vital war against spiritual evil and darkness. We are to suit up with the armor of God and go to battle with that, rather than wage war on Earth with each other. By focusing on our Earthly battles, we are not keeping ourselves open to God's command as our spiritual general.

Lastly, and this may sound silly to you, but we can not tolerate sin in our lives that we have yet to confess or are unwilling to confess. As Christians, I feel we often think that since we believe in Christ and the grace we are given through him is enough and the rest will take care of itself. However, being a Christian is a whole new lifestyle and it is something we must work at and build upon for our whole existence here on Earth. Psalms 66:18 tells us that if we keep sin in our hearts without confession, God will not hear us. Hebrews 10:22 tells us we are to draw near to the Lord with clean and pure hearts free from an evil conscience. How to get rid of that evil in our conscience is to confess.

These were in no particular order, but just different ways that we are hindered from being close to God and hearing him speak to us. I hope and pray that God has made his way into your heart in reading this.