Daily Proverbial, 1 June 2010

A man is praised according to his wisdom, but men with warped minds are despised. Proverbs 12, verse 8.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to say about this proverb. There's truth in it, to be sure; in my own experience, it's painful truth. People expect things of us, and when we don't act in the ways they expect, we lose face with them. When we slip and fall, when we do things that are wrong, or when they assume that we do things that are wrong, we lose standing in their eyes. I've said it before: I don't much care what people think of me. I don't want to go out of my way to do things that would 'de-estimate' me in people's eyes, but neither do I spend much time worrying about what people think of me because gossip happens no matter what we do.

Still, nobody (myself included) wants to be despised, and when you demonstrate that you're thinking with a warped mind people despise you. Not long ago, I had a pastor, a good friend, pray with and for me, and in the prayer he said he despised me and what I'd done. He was being honest after I had been honest about what I'd done, what I felt. I appreciated that honesty. It was ironic: finally be honest and you get to be despised. I was stuck smack dab in the middle of relationships where my heart was being pulled in several directions and this surely didn't fit in with my friend/pastor's expectations for where his friend and parishioner would lead his life. I had devastated my family and it rightfully angered him so he told me so.

It's in the past now yet I still don't want to be despised. I can't say my thinking then was 'warped' as what I felt and thought then was quite genuine and real. What was said and done was done out of love, even when it was love that wasn't fully mine to give. People said "don't trust your feelings" and I found that very difficult to do, especially when they were the only things that I believed were keeping me alive. After you've felt damaged for so long, to have someone so willingly share their heart felt like wading into a cool pond on a blistering day. But I understand how people could despise me because I was committed to one person yet gave my heart to another. It was dishonest to both of them because I learned if you aren't free to marry, then you aren't free to date (quoting Gary Chapman; not an original Dave thought). I wish I'd learned that lesson before, but wishes are sometimes for fools. I have strong faith yet acted in ways that were anything but Christian.

I saw it back then but didn't want to acknowledge it: acting that way, even when you're in love, makes people despise you. At the very least, they think you have a warped mind, and sometimes you do. When people confronted me with my sins, I felt genuine remorse as well as more than a touch of irritation. When friends started pulling away, I got angry because while part of me understood it - they despised a warped mind - but part of me also thought "who are you to throw stones at me?" Afterwards, I learned to adopt the prayer posture of saying "God, your will be done" and being content with that. I was learning that's the start of wisdom.

The relationship is over. You've read about all the convulsions involved in it so I won't go back into them. Emotionally, the wounds are healing but let me tell you: it hurts; I mean it REALLY hurts and I've never felt this kind of devastation before. All of it cost me my marriage, and we're stuck in a limbo of trying to move ahead and not be hurt any more. Personally, I'm learning to inch my way forward and to be thankful for the small, tender mercies. I've long thrived in the limelight of wanting people to like me, and now that I've actually started trying to 'walk the talk' I find that most people quietly don't give a flip let alone say "hey, you're doing better." It takes much longer to build back bridges than it does to tear them down, even in friendships with Christians. Guess I got what I deserved.

Still, our commonality as believers isn't just that we have a forgiving Savior. It's that we're all filthy with the need for Him, and someone else's junk isn't less ugly than my own. I really don't care about someone else's junk, and to be honest, I still don't much care what they think of mine. And yet, I think the best way to keep those thoughts from metastasizing into something dirtier is to fall back on that same prayer posture and say "God, your will be done." Then move forward from there. I can't say I will ever be praised for my wisdom, or even that I should be. Only time will tell, that is, time spent following a divine will, and being thankful for those tender mercies. For now, that's enough, and it's nothing for which anyone could despise me.

Guess I was privileged to find something to say after all.