Skip to main content

No Time for a Hasty Decision


This morning, I awoke reflecting on yesterday. What I've been complaining to my wife recently about is that I'm always feeling attacked by my bosses. Like all things, there is some truth to it and some error in perception. I felt I should read a bit about defensiveness, just to get an idea of how it's happening with me and what I can do to stop it. I came up with the following diagram:


from these really simple and straight forward articles:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-cycles-fear-cycles/201805/why-do-people-get-so-defensive
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Cycles-Fear-Connection-Relationship/dp/1590794400
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/201805/how-stop-getting-defensive

I see my problem, it's that I assume that people are coming from a bad place, and I just can't shake that. But even if people are coming from a bad place (whatever that means to me), I still have to find ways to turn it around. I have to work with all kinds of people, I have to love my wife, my child. I have to be able to respond to criticism, and to wait until I have something good to say.

I have developed some bad habits over the course of the years. Bad habits that are the sign of a wounded man. In order to not let wounds fester, I have to start living a more healthy life. I am so much of the time treating myself as though I am supposed to be beat up and broken down. Getting punched and getting a whooping are things that are going to happen; maybe I should come to expect that they are going to happen instead of being surprised all of the time. And maybe I can help myself to mitigate some conflict. If I'm so defensive, perhaps I should stop being so critical and drawing out people's criticism of me.

My devotional reading for the day examined the rod and the staff. God uses the staff to guide us and the rod to teach us what to pay attention to. One scripture stood out to me:

Isaiah 28:16 King James Version (KJV)16 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

I'm always running around, from thing to thing, with great urgency and haste. I'm certain it is dizzying to others. And in its own way is repulsive and maybe a bit attractive... but mostly repulsive, I have found. I am reminded of Lincoln's statement:

Give me six hours to chop a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Heavenly Father, help me to not respond in kind, but to respond kindly. And may I go a step further and lay kindness at the feet of others so that there trail to me (and perhaps some part of the world) is blazed in love.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Dim Confidence

This morning CS Lewis conveyed to me in Mere Christianity many ideas I think I will have to go back and examine, but one key idea was the idea of why some people seem to get more of God than others. Lewis likened God's reality, His revealed self, to sunshine in a mirror (or something like that). If the mirror is mucky then it will not be very good at reflecting the radiance of the sun. In a similar way, if a man is mucky, if his heart is impure, his mind unclean, then he will not be able to absorb the light. The light will be distorted and hazy, obscured. I envy men who are able to jump out and take hold of God offers them. I envy men, if I'm being honest, who are able to jump out and take hold of much less than God. They have confidence, they know they will acquire what they are after. Where does it come from, this confidence? Is it real or imagined? In any case, I know that God would have us be confident, especially if our life is in Him. So, these are my prayers today...
Post a Comment
Read more

From Goals to Roles

It's been quite a while since I've sat down to write down goals and map out plans to get there. I used to do this thing all the time when I was out of work living in Brooklyn. I would write down all of these details about the things I wanted to do (Bookbinding, Screen Printing, Music, etc). This was the era of David Allen and get things done. Much of that has stayed with me. As I look back, I became something of a productivity automaton. Not very crazy, as I have read about others being, but in my own haphazard way, I was one, too. Over the past several years there has not been quite the same reflective time, or maybe I have not thought that I needed it. But with my wife consistently telling me that I put too high a premium on work, that I'm not there to meet hers and the families needs, and with me thinking about friendships (or the lack of them) here in Memphis, my continued overweightness, and a few other messy features about myself, I consider that it is time to do...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditation as Rightly Concentrated Consideration | Contemplation as The Course of Right Action

Let us begin by saying that the basic difference between meditation and contemplation is that meditation is a human mode of prayer whereas contemplation is divinely infused prayer. This morning I consider, consideration. It's a term often used in the Bible, I believe in both the old and new testament. While you are going about your life, have you considered this... It's the entryway to the contemplative life. I use contemplation there, as a culminating thing, intentionally. Before I read a little bit, I might have considered using the word meditation instead, but that reveals my persuasion and error; also my inexperience. Meditation is man-initiated deep-thought. It's hope is to reach God. Contemplation, as exposed in the article below, is Spirit-breathed prayer inside of us, guiding us to right and holy actions. As I was searching consideration "vs" the other 2 terms, concentration came up. Presently, I see that as the course from consideration to meditation....
Post a Comment
Read more