Regrets about rudeness

You know what?  I think it’s time that I finally apologised for my rudeness towards various people.  Now this is a hard post to write, not because of swallowing my pride but rather because it is like this:  these people were actually bad.  However I have to admit that in my heart I went beyond just candidly expressing what they had done, and I allowed whole mountains of malice to build up in my heart towards them – I cannot deny that.  That is definitely not of Christ. For this I have to apologise profusely (and also repent before God).  You know, believe it or not, I am not even talking predominantly about this blog, or Tosin’s Bible Blog.  I genuinely tried to restrain myself from lashing out in malice, but sometimes (countless times) on these blogs, I just lost it, and I do have to apologise for that.

However, what I am really talking about here is the times I would actually open my mouth, and just give it to people.  Thankfully there have not been too many of these times.  Actually, even that handful number of times was too many, of course. However, far, far more are the times I allowed myself to think…ungodly thoughts. And then I’m sure that all these extremely unflattering thoughts were displayed all over my face.  And then in the times I thankfully managed to restrain myself from saying anything, I’m sure that these thoughts were displayed all over my face. And for all that, I can only apologise.

Explaining myself:  I try not to be the kind of person who makes apologies with one breath, then tries to make excuses with the other. So when I am apologising I want to own my mistakes. However, this is also what makes this difficult: At the time I was trying to stand up for myself.  I now realise that my mistake was not the fact that I was candid, but rather in losing myself to malice, and also losing grace at the same time. And then so many times, I let myself veer off into arrogance. “Actually, I think you’ll find that I am outstanding!!!” My goodness, I am shaking my head to remember it. However, it was all also largely an expression of frustration, and not knowing how to deal with them, and encountering the same nonsense over and over and over again until I got to the point where I just did not care and I gave it to them.

You know what?  None of this changes the fact that these people were and are largely pseudo-Christians. I know that these words might seem graceless.  But you know what?  There is a difference between being imperfect as Christians, and being utterly insincere.  Perhaps this is an example of my own hidden privilege, but to me these people (that I am talking about) were actually insincere.  I’m suggesting that it could be an example of unknown privilege on my part because I am just so accustomed to truly deep, truly fervent faith that to me anything else instantly screams of insincerity.  Who knows?  Perhaps to their minds they thought that they were being sincere, but they just did not have the kind of examples that I have been brought up with to understand what genuine Christian sincerity looks like? I can only shudder to remember the various experiences.

Now, by the grace of God, I believe that God has brought me to a place where I do understand how to interact graciously with people like that. I have had to learn many things to be applied simultaneously, above all, perhaps, boundaries. I have learned that I can walk away from full friendships with people, I have learned that I can choose the level of interaction I have with people without walking away from them altogether. I have also learned that I can evaluate someone to see if they would be an adequate friend for me before I make myself vulnerable to whoever they might turn out to be. Now you may have thought that I already knew that, as I preach the idea of evaluating your future spouse.  However, I have had to specifically learn it in the context of friendships/church interactions too, and realise it is just as relevant there.

You know what?  Something I will often say on either of my blogs is this:  I give a thousand percent in terms of my faith, my commitment, my desire to be like Jesus. The truth is that of late I have not been doing that in the same way. However, that is not because my determination has dipped, but rather for practical reasons. Because this is still my determination. And yet, to think that even with this determination, I could get things so drastically wrong. This is why I constantly cry out to God for humility. To anyone reading this, please please believe me:  the more determined you are for God, the more you need to strive and cry out for humility. It needs to be your watchword, like a sword hanging by your side, alongside the sword of the Word of God. You need to clothe yourself with humility. Sometimes as a Christian, the most dangerous time is when you know you are right, and everyone else is wrong (cough – tithing).  That is when you need to be most humble.  Because our enemy can and will strike.  I happen to be so ambitious for God (and for myself too!) that I need to drink humility, I need to swim in it daily.

I also want to apologise to anyone who has been reading these venomous posts (even though as I’ve said the primary problem has not even been on my blogs themselves). I am beyond mortified to think that in my anger and frustration and bitterness I might have influenced people to act in a similar way. (Just remembering that our enemy the devil is metaphorically called a serpent (or snake), and snakes produce venom, so it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that whenever we as Christians produce venom, this is directly influenced by the devil.  The simple fact is that the devil is capable of working through Christians, and I am as capable of being used by the devil as anyone else, especially when I know that I am right, and all the other Christians in the churches I go to are…insert unflattering term here.  So yes, in this I definitely let myself be used by the devil, which is obviously the last thing I would want in my commitment to Christ.)

You know what?  From henceforth it is my prayer that God would grant me the grace to be gracious to everyone, all the time. I have experienced so much nonsense from people that that is truly a commitment. Pragmatically speaking, even if I think ungracious things in my heart, then at least I hope I will be able to restrain myself from expressing those thoughts. Then at least it will only be between myself and God.

Also, an apology to Mr TDA, just in case you’re reading this:  (don’t worry, I’ve moved on in my mind):  I really want to emphasise that everything I wrote about you was completely sincere. It later occurred to me that you may have thought that I was mocking you, but I really wasn’t. OK I was not really that excited by your shirts, that was just being silly. (Not that there was anything wrong with them).  But sincerely, everything else.