Cease Fire

 Hey, Cobblestone,

    Right in the middle of teaching the class, I giggled. Not the students, but me, the teacher. Some may have characterized it as a chuckle. I tried to arrest it, but couldn’t, and the class gave me curious looks. We were going through a curriculum on biblical conflict resolution based on a book titled The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande. In those days, Mr. Sande did the teaching videos himself, and in the middle of a session on Communication, he said, “Communicate in such a way that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.” That was so stinking funny!!! Except, um, nobody else in the room got it.

    I’m a geek – a bookish kid from Darrtown, which is like being a hockey player from Honduras – but a book nerd nonetheless. I had read all the background info on the author. Heck, I even read the copyright pages of the book and related materials. (Can I get a digital hi-five from my brothers and sisters out there?) Privy to this info, I knew Ken Sande was in his third career: trained as an engineer, he worked that profession for a while before hopping into law school and applying his considerable intellect to the bar. As a “Christian Conciliator,” he was doing probably his best work yet. But in the middle of the video, I caught him red-handed, and I found it hilarious.

    Every engineer I ever worked with – which is to say quite a few – has been misunderstood. I know this because, fairly often, I was the one doing the misunderstanding. But I wasn’t the only one. All disciplines of engineering have not only language but also symbols and protocols to get highly technical information across. But go out the back door of any machine shop you’ve walked into and you’ll find solid proof – it’s called the scrap bin – that tech-speak doesn’t always work. As for the author’s second career – oh, shoot, if I began to write on the relative merits of “legalese,” I’d have to apologize to anyone who’s ever seriously tried to write or speak it! Suffice to say: I read a document earlier today that had obviously been written by an attorney, and bookish as I am, I’m pretty sure I still don’t understand the thing. I have a boatload of respect for Ken Sande, but he was recommending that we speak the languages of Information and Persuasion where the language of Love is the only recipe for success.

    Last week we began redeeming language. If the relative health of language is inversely proportional to the level of misunderstanding in the world, then language is in a sorry state, and we have much work to do. Not only nations but communities, families – even husbands and wives, who are one flesh, for heaven’s sake (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5, 6; Mark 10:8; Ephesians 5:31) – are misunderstanding one another by light-years. In our own strength and by our own wits, redeeming language is impossible. And besides all that, we have an active adversary who’s devilishly good at using our own strength and wits against us. But his is not the only game in town. We who have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16) also have an Almighty Ally.

    I get it: everybody wants to be understood. On our best days, we want to understand others, too. The problem arises in using the languages of Information and Persuasion to get there. Those will win debates, even arguments – but as we know, where there’s a winner there’s also a loser. Understanding is an essential step toward peace. Speaking the language of Love is an essential step toward understanding. Anything less is a tentative cease-fire.

    Last week we began practicing speaking the language of love to our Father. The simple prayer starter I recommended was the opening verse of Psalm 18 – I love you, O Lord, my strength. I’ve benefitted from speaking it this week, sometimes followed by “I’ve missed you” or maybe “I need you.” I hope you’ve grown closer to the Father as well. Here’s my next recommendation, deeper and more involved:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

    He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

    He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

    I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

    your rod and your staff,

    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

    in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

    my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

    all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

    forever (Psalm 23).

    The Twenty-third Psalm was in our Bible reading plan lately. Commentators and pastors and lovers of Scripture for centuries have been eager to point out one of its defining traits: the one praying and singing goes from talking about God to talking to him, from “he” to “you.” The transition is seamless and natural – a soul-level slide up the scale to first-person communion with the Everlasting One. Give it a try. Go on. Begin with those first few verses, encouraging your soul with the truth about the Lord – then turn it loose to play in the throne room of God. 

Unless I’ve missed my guess, we don’t stand much of a chance of speaking the language of Love to one another until we become free and easy in speaking it with the Lover of our souls. He spoke it to us first – and as I’ve said to you before, all prayer is answering speech.

Years back, I was in conflict with a brother-in-Christ. Yep, it happens – who knew?! He and I went through biblical mediation together, with some of Ken Sande’s staff, actually. By speaking the language of Information, we gained a little understanding of one another: we understood why we were in conflict, asked/received forgiveness, and resolved to not aggravate one another anymore. Information – even Bible information – got us to about ten percent. But when we learned to speak the language of Love, reconciliation truly happened – the difference between the tentative ceasefire and lasting peace. 

What? You didn’t know redeeming language would be a multi-step process? Friends, it took more than a little while to get here – let’s stick with it for all our days, and let Jesus find us putting much love and vitality into it when he returns. Go with the “homework” I assigned – it’s not a lot, really – and maybe next week we’ll talk about redeeming even the language of Love from some of the wonkiness it has suffered. Deal?

Grace and Peace (and good times in the throne room!),

John