A nice Christian fellow was at the Grand Canyon admiring its magnificent beauty when he slipped and fell over the edge. Fearing for his life... he grabbed a tree branch on the way down, and managed to pull himself back near the edge of the cliff. Peering over the edge, there to his utter shock stood two grizzly bears... looking as if they were waiting for him! What to do? He said a quick prayer, “Father in heaven, please make these bears be Christian bears!” Carefully, the fellow pulled himself up and over the edge to flat ground ... within a few feet of the two bears. Both bears bowed their heads, put their paws together and said, “God, we thank you for the meal we are about to receive.”
Miscommunication, misunderstanding? Maybe good Christian bears are thankful for their food too! Or, we could conclude that the moral of the story is that sometimes even Christians devour other Christians!
This humorous anecdote highlights an all too real problem among people –– miscommunication and misunderstandings can cause serious problems.
Have you experienced something like this in communicating with others in your church family? You thought you were clear in delivering your message, but still you were misunderstood. Why does this happen among well meaning Christians working together for what we all perceive as our common goal? Why do such communication problems become the seeds of discontent, divisions and even divisiveness among brothers?
Because we live in a fallen world. Even though Christians are “not of this world” the world’s influences touch us every day. Those influences can envelop us like a thick fog. Worldly attitudes and influences are the dominate forces in our lives. Like driving a car in foggy overcast weather, our vision is clouded and we instinctively prepare for a collision. In Christian community we tend to do the same thing, prepare for a collision with other Christians, because we are conditioned by our experiences to expect the worst from one another. There is a relational breakdown growing in secular culture and its affecting the attitudes and actions of Christians too.
I really do hope our reactions to each other are more unconscious than intentional, but we expect the worst from each other. We’re guarded, defensive, not sure if we can trust the other person, and worried about how to frame and phrase an important message. Why? Because we are conditioned by the world around us to think defensively and react aggressively to possible confrontation. As the world becomes more and more prone to confrontation, so do Christians. No attribute of civilized life seems more under attack than civility. Our first reaction is not necessarily to be nice... it’s to be prepared to pounce on our brother, who we perceive is preparing to pounce on us.
Misunderstanding and miscommunication is endemic in our culture. We become defensive when someone doesn’t understand us or we don’t understand them. Half the time, we’re not even sure what our differences are, but we’re sure we have them, so we prepare for a battle. If we approach everything with a warlike mentality, then we end up looking at brothers and sisters in the church with an adversarial frame of mind.
Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contentiousness. It’s the way of the world and the ways of the world infiltrate God’s Church because we’re human. We react to one another defensively, feeling threatened in some vague way. We respond aggressively by arguing emotionally when we should be trying to understand and evaluate our different points of view... rationally.
Well intended interactions and unrealistic expectations are usually at the root of misunderstandings and miscommunications among Christian people. Just like the two bears that ate that poor fellow. They were good Christian bears! The poor fellow assumed that good Christian bears wouldn’t harm him, let alone eat him. The bears saw the situation differently than he did. A big misunderstanding and incomplete communication.
Christians seem to be leading the way in creating the wrong impression inside and outside the church. Christians are not immune from saying and doing the wrong things. In fact, the world notices our bad behavior very quickly, commenting harshly on our bad conduct and so-called “christianity”.
Some Christians have turned themselves into the self-appointed attack dogs of Christendom. They seem determined to ravage not only opponents of Christianity, but also fellow believers of whose doctrinal positions they disapprove.
A stroll through the Internet reveals Christian Web sites so drenched in sarcasm and animosity that an agnostic, or a follower of another religious tradition interested in what it means to be a Christian, might be permanently disillusioned with pursuing the idea.
Why would any Christian feel pleased or satisfied when a brother stumbles and makes a mistake? I guess we feel a momentary sense of superiority... “it wasn’t me that made that mistake”. We build ourselves up by tearing others down for their shortcomings. While you may be pleased with yourself and you may have won a battle... you have lost the war. Don’t be deceived... no one watching such behavior will ever think you’re being Christian. Hypocrite, yes.
Misunderstandings, miscommunication, reveling in the flaws and mistakes of others is at the very core of the strife we see in today’s church.
The attack dog mentality is why many people will leave a church seeking refuge anywhere else. It’s no wonder we long to return to the spirit of the early church, and well we should. The Church must be about love and forgiveness. Even in disciplining sinful conduct, the attribute of love much prevail and guide every action. The ungodly world should be challenged, in fact awed by the Christian life... “see how they love one another.” Such love should shame the unbelieving world. Such love is after all, the mark of a true Christian.
So how can believers avoid misunderstandings, miscommunication, and the kind of worldly thinking that moves us to attack one another? How can Christians be in the world, but not of the world?
Next time we’ll probe these questions: Why do we act and react to one another the way we do? How can we learn to not feast on one another like the grizzly bears we can all too easily become in Christian community. Till next time... keep on renovating your heart for a fuller and richer life in Christ!
