Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)
Yesterday’s
post was about giving up defensiveness. To summarize it as briefly as I was
longwinded yesterday, the keys were in the context in which we are to do so:
where Christ dwells and in the differentiation between the action of defending
oneself from harm and the attitude of defensiveness.
It
so happens that I am reading a book that deals a lot with defensiveness. The
author describes defensive people as feeling singled
out, attacked, silenced, shamed, guilty, accused, insulted, judged, angry,
scared, and outraged. She says that they exhibit a variety of behaviors: crying,
physically leaving, emotionally withdrawing, arguing, denying, focusing on
intentions, seeking absolution, and avoiding. They turn the attack on others and
deny responsibility.[1]
Then,
of course, there is Kubler and Ross’s list: Denial, Anger, Depression,
Bargaining, and Acceptance. The first four sum up Ms. Diangelo’s lists. And we
can shorten it further by considering what Dallas Willard describes as Assault
and Withdrawal – as bad attitudes, habits, or automatic responses to what happens
to us.
So,
if we are going to turn away from those reactions in the context of where
Christ dwells, what are we to do? Today’s passage is one possible step. If I am
willing to recognize that I struggle with defensiveness – if I can put that
name to it, or to whatever the sin is, and agree that it is wrong, harmful, ineffective,
or whatever makes it less than the best way to live, I have taken steps toward
defeating it. If you don’t realize or recognize that you have a problem, or can’t
speak about it, it controls you. As you name it and learn to see it at
work, you can – prayerfully and with God’s
help – defeat it. Telling others isn’t meant to humiliate you. Being able to
tell others shows you’ve begun the battle against it.
This
hits me hard because I’ve been here before. I can spiral down into depression
over months and one day think, “Am I depressed? I think I’m depressed.” And it
is from that point that I can do something about my depression. It’s the same
with defensiveness. If I don’t realize that’s what I’m doing, I can’t stop.
Confessing it to others is an act of power over it.
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