Be kind to those who irritate you because....

We make many assumptions about people around us, especially those who tend to irritate us. Why do they behave the way they do? Why do they irritate us? Why are they so irritable? There can be many "Whys." When irritated, Remember: "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always." 

It is easy to respond harshly, cynically or irritably to those who respond poorly to us. The natural response is to respond back in kind. Or to confront. A loving response is to reply with kindness and see if you can uncover the pain that is causing their reaction to you. 

Sometimes pain is public like when one loses their job or a family member dies. Most pain is held in private hidden from the outside world: marriages in crisis, severe financial pressure, decisions that need to be made. Everyone has either public or private pain. Usually it is private and until we understand the issues someone is dealing with we cannot understand them - or their reactions. Once we do, we can not only minister to them but understand why they responded the way they did. 

We live in an increasingly polarized and busy world where relationships that allow us to share deeply are becoming more rare. Being sensitive to those around us and responding to them in kindness, knowing that we don't know their struggles, is a posture of love that can open the door to better understanding.

The unlikely gift of pain

I experienced my first real failure at age 28. My dreams were broken, the vision for my life in shambles, I had resigned from my church after four years of deep pain, had no idea what I would do next and was suffering from clinical depression. What I did not know then was that my “failure” would be used by God to mold, direct, soften and sharpen, and forge things in my heart that could not be forged except through pain.

It was not a fair suffering by any stretch of the imagination. One of the lessons I have learned over the years is that “fair” is not God’s greatest concern for our lives. His greater concern is that we become what He wants us to be for the sake of what He wants us to do. Life was not fair for Moses, Joseph, Paul, Jesus, David, Esther, or most of the great characters of Scripture.

In every case there was a testing of the soul, a forging of character, a decision that had to be made whether to trust in the midst of suffering and the learning that can only take place through pain. As a focusing agent, nothing does it like pain – regardless of the source of that pain. As a young leader I did not know the cost of leadership in terms of suffering and pain. As an older leader I realize that the lessons learned in suffering and pain would not have been learned in any other way. Suffering is both the cost of leadership and a prerequisite of becoming a leader of deep influence. There is no other way.

As I survey my life over the past thirty years I can trace all the major themes of my life to periods of deep pain. It was in those times that God most forged character, faith, heart, soul and mind. I would not willingly choose to repeat those periods of pain but I would also not trade them for anything. Without the pain I would not be who I am today. As one who wants to have deep influence I can say with honesty: “Thank you God for the pain I have endured. You used it to make me who I am.”

A sage of the faith once wrote, “God cannot use a man greatly until He has first hurt him deeply.” This is not a statement about God’s character but about what it takes to mold our character. A reflection on the great men and women of Scripture reveal periods of great pain and brokenness which made them who they were. One of the prices of developing great influence is the presence of suffering in our lives.

Peter, speaking to those who were suffering because of their faith put suffering into an eternal perspective. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Peter is clear that suffering is not a random event but is intimately connected to what God wants to do in our lives – to refine our faith and make us the kind of people who are genuine and authentic which results in praise, glory and honor to God.” There is an authenticity to the faith of those who have gone through deep waters and rather than abdicate to bitterness and a diminished life, follow even harder after God, trusting Him when it makes no sense to trust and learning his sufficiency in their pain.

Paul, understood the deep connection between understanding Jesus and suffering. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

To know Jesus is first to understand what it means to be “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). While health, wealth and prosperity are proclaimed today as God’s will for all of His people, Scripture says that those who suffer share in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the writer of Hebrews encourages us with the truth that “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-9). If the very Son of God was molded by suffering how can any of His followers not assume that they too will be molded by the same?

Think about this. Without the dark nights of the soul, David would never have been able to write the Psalms, the place all of us turn when we suffer our dark nights of the soul. Without his wilderness experience, Moses would never have become God’s most humble leader with whom he spoke face to face. Without Abraham’s willingness to follow God not knowing how it would turn out he would never have become the paradigm of faith for all the generations after him. Without suffering, the messiah would not have become the bearer of our sin!

When all is said and done, God is more concerned about the refining of our faith and lives than He is for our comfort and ease. The picture that Peter uses of faith “refined by fire” is the picture of the heating of metals in the forge so that the dross floats to the surface and can be scraped off to be thrown out – leaving something pure and beautiful behind. Pain and suffering do for our hearts what the fire does for precious metals like gold. There is no other way to purity metal and there is no other way to purify and mold our hearts.

When I packed my truck on a September day to leave my pastorate, I had no money, no job to go to and no hope. I was devastated, sad, tired, depressed and had a lot of questions for God for which I was receiving no answers. My name and reputation were being trashed, lies were being told and I could not answer back but had to leave my reputation with God. At that moment I was in survival mode unable to see beyond the pain – and there was nothing at that time to see! It was a simple hanging on to God and that is all. There was no great faith, no assumption of what He would do. I was just trying to survive my faith.

I now have the perspective of 30 years to look back on those painful days. It was through that pain that my theology of grace became a lifestyle of grace where I no longer needed to prove myself to God or others. It was because of those circumstances that I ended up at the national office of the EFCA, something I had no desire or intention to ever do. It was through my dark night of the soul that I started to consult with church boards and staff on healthy leaders, intentional leadership and empowered structures which in turn birthed two books, High Impact Church Boards, Leading From the Sandbox and two others.

Through the tough days I learned that God would be faithful if I would just trust Him. I let go of my need for “justice” (sometimes vengeance) and left that issue with Him. My depression led me to counseling and medication which in turn gave me great empathy for those who suffer from emotional pain on a regular basis. Slowly over time, the pain gave way to mercy, grace and a spiritual perspective and memories that once tied my stomach in knots for days became merely parts of my biography that informed who I was today. Over time, the perspective of my pain turned from that of hopelessness and suffering to one of God’s gracious grace in my life that forged a more perfect me – the me God designed me to be.

Suffering, pain and God's sovereignty

I am convinced that nothing tests our theology of God's sovereignty than when life blows up in our faces and we are left with the pain of the results. I have had my share so can speak from some experience:  dreams shattered in I my pastoral experience; being turned down for the job I presently hold, two life threatening illnesses and more. Each time I had to grapple with the questions: Is God good, is He truly sovereign? Can I trust Him with my future? and can He redeem the pain, suffering and situation that is beyond my control and use them for His purposes.

Let's face it. It is easy to talk about His sovereignty and goodness in the good times. It is far more difficult to do it in the hard times! Those of us who preach and lead and teach often have fine tuned theology for others but it is when life comes undone that we grapple with it ourselves.

Etched in my memory is January 4, 2009 when I was pulled off an aircraft in Thailand, sent to the hospital and found myself on a ventilator that evening with massive pneumonia, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and septic shock - for the second time in two years. Awake that night on a ventilator with all the pain it engendered, a bad prognosis, my wife on the other side of the planet and my 21 year old son signing medical consents and knowing the odds I had to grapple with the questions above. 

It called the question: What did I really believe about God's sovereignty and Romans 8? Was God good even if I had not survived? Could I truly trust God's purposes for my life? The truth is I felt not a whit like Isaiah 40:28-31:

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

I felt a lot more like David in the Psalms where he despairs of his life and his soul is utterly cast down. And I knew that I had to choose like David did in Psalm 62 to trust God in spite of everything because He is sovereign and good and present and my salvation no matter what my situation. It was a choice I made late in the night as I wrestled with God and chose a path of faith. It was not easy and I had no idea of the outcome - even whether I would survive long enough to see Mary Ann when she arrived.

There are times when life surprises us, disappoints us and frankly betrays us. It is in those times that we make a choice to either believe what we have known to be true or not. Frankly, in retrospect, I am deeply thankful that I was faced with the choice on a number of occasions because it was in the crucible that faith and truth became truly real in my life and heart. It is the testing of our faith that makes it real. Every step of faith is a step toward God and toward His truth, promises, love and faithfulness. There is no other way to truly make it real!

When dreams are shattered

It is a great gift to come to the place where we have nowhere else to turn than to God - because in the end He is what we really need and is the only One who can resolve many of the issues we face!

That is the gift that shattered dreams gives us. They force us back to the One who has our destiny in His hands, they give us the choice of turning either to bitterness or to faith, and call the question on where our security lies. Each of these is a great gift from God if we choose to respond by moving closer to God.

That is a big IF. I meet those who allow their disappointment to move them toward diminished dreams, bitterness toward God and others and a quiet resignation that this is all there will be.

Then I meet those who allow their need to build character, deepen their trust in God, re-group and rather than live with resignation, boldly fight back with the hope that comes from faith in God.

What makes the difference?

The difference comes back to how we see God. Is He truly trustworthy? Is He truly good? Can I really trust Him with my life and destiny? Do I believe that He has greater purposes for my life than I can always understand? Can He redeem pain for His glory and my benefit?

If I can say yes to those questions I will be on a path toward growth, maturity and healing that will profoundly change me. If I cannot say yes to those questions, confusion or bitterness will be the path.

The key is understanding God and that takes time in His word and in His presence. Those who make that investment have a stockpile of strength and understanding and faith that carry them through the dark days. Those who don't - don't.

The gift of failure and pain

I was young when I went through the dark night of the soul – four years – my first pastorate. In that four years, my dreams were shattered, my heart was broken, my self worth was nearly destroyed, my reputation vilified by a powerful few. There have been other periods of great pain, none as great as the first but still they tried my soul and tested my faith and calling.

Those periods felt like failure. In reality they were the necessary steps toward success. There is no success without pain for pain, rightly handled is one of the non-negotiables of success and growth.

How thankful I am for them. How deeply I don’t want to repeat them. But failure and pain I have found to be a great gift for through them I have become what I am and without them I would still be what I was.

Faith does not grow in the comfort zone but in the red zone, where we are forced to confront our inability and learn His ability. In fact, it is my conviction that those who know Christ most intimately have learned that intimacy on the anvil of failure, suffering and pain because in the dark night of the soul they have been forced to cry out to God and in doing so, learn that He is sufficient, good, powerful and the only one who can ultimately be the source of our strength.

There is no growth without pain. It may be pain inflicted upon us by others, brought upon us by ourselves, or simply the circumstances of life. One giant of the faith wrote, “God cannot use a person greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” I believe that with all my heart and it is why we should see pain as our friend, not our enemy.  We don’t look for it but we thank God for it. It is the maker of character and faith if we treat it well. It is the maker of bitterness and cynicism if we treat it badly.

It was in pain that I learned to pray for my enemies – a supernatural lesson. It was in pain that I understood that God loved me unconditionally and that there was nothing I could do to make him love me more and nothing I could do to love me less. It was in pain that I learned to empathize with the humanness of others. It was in pain that I learned the grace of Jesus. It was in pain that I learned to live by faith. It was in pain that I understood my human limits and the unlimited goodness of Jesus.

Without pain. Without suffering. Without failure I would be much less than I am today. God grows us in the red zone, not the comfort zone.

Peter understood this well and he was a recipient of great pain and great grace. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trains. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Father, thank you for the gift of failure, pain and suffering. For wrapped in the sorrow of these gifts is an even greater gift of love, mercy, forgiveness, strength, grace and the most precious gift of all,  knowing you more intimately so that we can follow you more closely and love you more deeply