more honesty

The discussion on honesty continues over at Jean's blog.

In my experience, the situation usually goes something like this. We're hanging out with friends and someone says "I find that I'm getting angry with my kids all the time. It's horrible." Then I, wanting to sympathise with her, will jump in saying something like, "Me too. Just yesterday...." then proceed to give an account of my dreadful anger the day before. My friend feels much better because I understand and her sin is 'normal'. I feel better for having helped her to feel better. We also feel better because it's theraputic to talk about what's bothering us. We've gotten it off our chests. Other friends around us will feel better because their experience of anger is not as bad as ours. There has been no repentance, no change, no prayer, no further dependance on God. Nothing has been gained.

I plan to change how I respond in this situation, right from the beginning. Here's how.

1. Take the focus off me. This is about my friend and her godliness, not mine. I need to use my conversational skills to draw her out, not to tell funny (or horrible) stories about myself. I should ask questions about when the sin occurs, how she feels about it at the time (is it a relief?), are the things that she seems to be angry about the things she is really angry about - or are they just an outlet for some deeper anger, discontent or resentment that she has.

2. Agree with her that the sin is significant and horrible, but admit that it's something that we struggle with too (no details!) Don't let her off the hook!

3. Ask questions to help her work out what repentance might look like. For example, if she finds she is angry with her kids because she'd rather read blogs than play with them, perhaps she needs to tackle her blog addiction... (not that I know anything about that!)

4. Pray if appropriate and tell her you'll ask how she's going next week (or whenever).

You can ask me in a few weeks how this is going.

Now what about talking about our sins as part of a bible talk or seminar or something like that?

I think women often do this very unhelpfully. Mature preacher men don't do it much at all. We so want to connect to our hearers that we overshare. When I hear a speaker go into details of her sin I feel self-righteous because I realise I'm doing better than she is - and hey, she's a super christian! - so I stop trying. If we're going about the same, the sin is normalised. It's unlikely that her sin will seem less than mine because she will tell the story so well. I think the policy here should be, more time on what God wants, fewer details about me.

The (male) preacher who has most compellingly called me to repentance is one who has experienced significant struggle with sin. This comes out, not in the details, but in the empathetic way in which he preaches. Without sharing any of his own, I know that he understands my battles and he points me to Jesus for forgiveness and strength.