How to Know the Difference Between Venting and Just Being Honest
When we do things without grumbling or disputing, we stand out as blameless, innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation.
If we can shift from complaining and grumbling, this is going to shift the way people view us. I’ve found that people who talk about God the most are some of the most grumbling and complaining people. I might be to some degree, but I hope that I'm not one of them.
Complaining and grumbling has become addictive for us because it's so easy to do.
There's a fine line between being real and complaining and grumbling. That's why we need people that will notice it in us when we start focusing on everything that's wrong with our lives. Paul says that the way we shine as lights in the world is to hold fast to the Word of Life. We do this so that in the day of Christ, we may be proud that we didn't labor in vain.
There is a purpose to our lives and we're detracting from it when we are full of complaining and grumbling. Someone can go through uncomfortable and difficult things for a season without telling everybody about it. In those dark seasons, complaining and grumbling will destroy your life.
My friend suffered a stroke five years ago, and she had to relearn her speech and movement. She promises that she wouldn’t have survived that season if she was surrounded by complaints and grumbling. Even though she has had to watch other people take care of her kids for years, she knew that she would die from the pain of focusing on everything that's wrong in her life.
Sarah also knew that if she would see the good and all that God was giving back to her, then she would have joy and peace. And I watched someone who has lost nearly everything still not complain and she has her own way of doing it. She has found hope and joy in choosing to focus on what is good. And we can do that for each other.
“Joy is contagious. So is disunity, complaining, and grumbling.”
So, how do we practically live this out?
There's a fine line between having an awkward conversation and being annoying or constantly correcting people. It's something we do in our immaturity when we're just starting out as a believer and feeling our own conviction. We start to lay it on everybody else.
Rather than trying to control everybody else's complaining and grumbling, work on your own. Trust that it will be contagious if you speak life-giving words. What I've also noticed works well is shifting conversations when something is going down a track. You can do so by focusing on something more positive. If you're headed down into a conversation that is going to produce both complaining and grumbling, redirect the conversation into something that is helpful and more hopeful.
SHAME
Shame wants us to stay in hiding. It wants to keep us from saying the thing we see, and it keeps us from wanting to own our truth. We can be hesitant to say our truth out loud and get the full truth out there. So, some of our good tension is making sure that we are calling each other out of the darkness and into the light. And we're willing to press each other until we say that thing out loud.
We create a space for each other to do that because we're not going to leave one another. There's nothing one could say or do that could stop us from loving each other.
That, ultimately, is the love that we save for our families because we’re stuck together. And so, those tend to be places where we can be really safe. But God calls us to exercise that kind of love in the body of Christ, which is our friendships, and that we belong to one another. And I think that's the safety there.
The things we have in common contribute to this love, most of important being our shared value of wanting each other to fully live in the light because we know that that's where the freedom is. All of us have the tendency to hide a little bit. So, it's important to be able to have those friends that you can call and who know you well enough to dig when you’re not sharing the whole truth.
“I want to feel close to you. I want you to feel known and loved. And so, for me it's that balance of pulling the hidden boxes off the shelf. And it's not intentional, but I when you have this history and a friendship where you've given each other permission to ask probing questions, that's really what love is.”
When you say the thing that pains you out loud, it loses its power over you, especially when you have a soft place to land. Sharing your pain allows the people you love to remind of your worth and of God’s love. Your friends are there to ask the hard questions to in those moments. That's the freedom that comes with this dance of being able to be fully vulnerable and then having someone else be able to create a space of empathy, a shame-free zone. That is what ushers in freedom, and that's the beauty of what God calls us to. I mean, this is the marrow of life. And so, I'm glad we get to do that for each other.
What Creates a Safe Space in a Friendship?
[It's not a matter of finding it; it truly is a matter of doing the work to build it.]
You can only have that kind of friendship when you're willing to share the thing that you don't want to say out loud. And sometimes you have to go first. That immediately creates a space for the other person to say the thing.
“I want to live that moment out in a vulnerable and authentic way. If I know someone's holding out on me, even if it's not intentional, it makes me want to hold out.”
This becomes a dance where you don’t know if you trust each other, or if the other person wants you to be vulnerable with them.
What Qualities of Relationships Build More of a Commitment to Each Other Like Sisters Than Just Casual Friends?
I think it's that idea of imperfection. That's how we're doing it. This is how it goes. And I think that there's just got to be that place where you're willing to not put up the masks that we all tend to put up. And how can we create a space for one another, to be brave. I think in order to be brave, some of the bravest things you can do is feel your feelings. I think that's what happens in our conversations is we're calling each other out, you know. I think of Adam and Eve in that hiding that happened when they sinned. So many of us are in hiding. We have facets of ourselves that go into hiding. I just want to be like,
God came looking for them saying, “Where are you? Come here, I want to be with you, even in your sin, even in your shame.”
You know, that is the kind of friend I want to be. I want to reflect God's image and the very character that He reflected - because He had created friendships.
>>> God is about community and He created people in the Garden of Eden to walk with Him. And we went and hid in sin and shame, but He comes looking for us even in our sin and in our shame. And that's what friendship is. It's coming to one another, not in the good places where you launch the book and it did awesome or your kid just won state; there's all the good things that we want to celebrate. But we want to also come looking for one another. I think that is the power of pursuit; we all want to be pursued. So what if we became those people that were pursuers of one another's hearts, and that's what God does for us? We can do that when there's vulnerability, empathy, and authenticity. When you actually break them down and practice them and your friendships, that's where healing comes. That's where freedom comes.
Well, I just know that people are reading this right now and they're thinking to themselves, “I would give my right arm for a friendship like this, for somebody that was a safe, soft place. That called me out and that fought for me.” So what does it look like for someone to build and create that in their own life? What are some real practical steps that they can take?
This is a very special friendship and it did not come out of thin air. We have put the work in. We have prioritize each other. We have been intentional. We have picked up the phone and call each other and ask the hard questions that happens regularly. I'm thinking about three weeks ago, I'm sitting in front of my house and you and I are catching up. And you're asking me the invasive questions. And I remember just exactly what you said, and I had to decide how I felt because I hadn't even thought about it in months or weeks. I'm not saying that those conversations feel great and happy all the time. In fact, a lot of them feel difficult, but what are some really specific steps that people can take to begin to create this?
First of all, you've got to be willing to be the pursuer.
I think I used to tell myself the story like a victim. I think that you can look to confirm this story that you'll never have a friendship like this and that you've tried and it never worked. Or you could look to confirm this story that God has a friend for you, and you get to be the one to pursue and cultivate and build that.
You've got to be willing to go first, and willing to exercise vulnerability.
Learn to be a listener. I think that people are longing to be heard and seen and known. There's some practical ways that you can practice listening to other people where they share and then you reflect back to them. Just spending time and calling the person up and be willing to do the fun things too like shopping together. A few weeks ago I was crying alone in my car and there was a moment where I thought “I could cry alone, or I could call a friend and have someone bear witness with me in this”. I called and it felt good, because I'm not a huge crier. I’m a seven and kind of live in my head. I think it's important to just be willing to show all the range of emotions that we can feel in friendships too.
Know that you guys will love the ‘Find Your People’ study guide that has streaming video, and goes even deeper into the Scripture and the topics that Jennie talks about in the book. We recommend that you start with the book, and do the book club kit with us as you read the book. And then when you've done with the book club kit, do the Bible study. It's actually two different resources, but they go together and it really is a whole experience that your group can do or you can do individually that can help you build deep community in a really, really lonely world.
The ‘Find Your People’ Bible study is available now and all retailers.
