Monday, June 24, 2013

TMI!! Where's the Love?

Recently, as I was doing a study on insecurities, I ran across something that has been on my mind so much, I finally decided it was time to write.  I want to share this thought with others because I believe it is such a subtle and destructive tool of satan.  I have seen it at its ugliest and I myself have been guilty of it at one time or another.
I read a passage in a book called “So Long Insecurities” by Beth Moore.  The passage described the account of a young lady who was engaged to a guy and learned some things about him that caused her to rethink her decision to marry him.  She believed God brought this information to her attention to protect her from making a life-long mistake.  But though she had enough information to make the right decision, she was driven to learn more.  To her detriment, she went on a fact-finding mission.  The information she gathered did nothing for her except to wound her more deeply and strip her further of her security.
The lesson here is HUGE!  When God wants us to know something, He is able to reveal the matter without our going to dig it up.  And when He is doing the revealing, no matter how upsetting or disappointing, He is also supplying the grace and wisdom we need to deal with the matter.  Where we get into trouble is when we get TOO MUCH INFORMATION.  I’m not talking about sticking our heads in the sand here…we don’t have to go to one extreme or the other.  I don’t know all that motivates us to “dig up” stuff or continue to “gather” information God never intends for us to know…I’m certain there are some people who are just malicious and desire to destroy and some who are just plain nosey…but I think in many cases it is motivated by the lie we believe from the enemy that we need to protect ourselves.  Some of us have been wounded…deeply wounded.  We find it difficult to trust and feel we need to brace ourselves for the next hurt.  We don’t want to be caught off guard and disappointed…we don’t want to be “gullible”.  We analyze the apologies of another to decide whether it’s safe to accept it and say, “Fool me once…shame on you!  Fool me twice…shame on me!  The problems is…TMI without the grace and wisdom of God does the opposite…it strips us of security, wounds us and destroys relationships.  I’ve personally seen this mindset destroy a church body.  It’s WRONG!!!  If you are tempted in this way, I implore you to consider what God’s Word says in I Corinthians 13.  I will paraphrase verse 7…Love bears all things: a good example of this is a parent whose child has made a mistake.  Though the parent deals with the matter, they do not share it with everyone because they do not want others to think badly of their child.  They cover the matter in order to protect their character.  We are called to do this with our fellow Christians.  Love believes all things: rather than being cynical, love believes the best of others.  It hopes that the best will come out of the mistakes of others.  It endures all the wrong doing of others because self has been sacrificed and the Spirit of Love is in full control.

Our hearts tell us it’s risky, our flesh says protect yourself, the world tells us it’s being gullible…God calls it love…and says we’re nothing unless we’re expressing it the way Christ did.
Let’s trust God to do our protecting and to supply the information we NEED…let’s reject TMI and get to the business of loving!


No comments:

Post a Comment