Misunderstanding

If the Bible didn’t exist, I think Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People would be my guide book for life.

The fifth habit is: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I confess that I forget this habit sometimes and everyone pays the price.

And if you think I’m writing about this today because I forgot this habit earlier this week, well, you understand.

Go back and look at that habit again and this time note the comma.

That comma stands for something that has to come between the first part of the habit and second part of the habit.

It’s the choice to risk misunderstanding.

Seeking to understand someone is the easier part of the habit. The fun part. People are always happy to answer questions about themselves. People enjoy talking about how they feel and what they think.

But at some point, for a real relationship to grow into a source of goodness and life, you have to open yourself up to be mis-understood.

This is the part where you find out if the other person values you as much as you value them. It’s the part where you gently start to open yourself up and make yourself vulnerable to things that could be lurking in the depths of the other person. Things like apathy, condescension, contempt, judgment, manipulation, or rejection.

You find out these things by sharing what you feel or think and risking that the other person will misunderstand you.

Now, if you really did your homework and you understand the other person well, you decrease the risk of misunderstanding. By learning as much as you can about the other person, you learn how to share yourself in a way that is considerate, kind, and thoughtful.

When you find the rhythm that paces the other person’s life, you pick up on her beat and start to dance to it with her.

But, even after you seek to understand, you still must take the risk that you will be misunderstood.

Sometimes, you’re in a relationship with someone who has the grace, kindness, and patience to work through the misunderstanding with you. He chooses to want the relationship with you enough to return the favor of seeking to understand.

But sometimes, even good people can’t get beyond the misunderstanding. Life is hard for everyone. People are busy. People carry heavy burdens. Some people live in constant pain. People who are busy, grieving, hurting, struggling, or tired may choose to end things at the point of misunderstanding. You may find yourself shut out.

But this is the risk you must take.

Because a relationship only works when both people are understanding and understood.

Sometimes it’s not going to work out. You’re going to fail to understand or you’re going to fail to be understood. The relationship will break or it will not happen at all. It will hurt. You will struggle with your failure to make it work. You will wonder if you really are that bad person the other person misunderstood you to be.

You may think:

“What if they didn’t misunderstand me? What if they really did understand me better than I understand myself? Am I bad person?”

These kinds of questions will keep you awake at night.

But…you have to risk all of this happening if you ever want to break through to a quantum (Stephen Covey word) relationship. The kind of relationship that makes the world bigger, brighter, and more full of possibilities for both of you. The kind of relationship where love has room to grow.

I believe that being an apprentice and student of Jesus Christ means that I go first, which is to say that I put myself last.

That may sound like nonsense, but it’s not.

The Rule of Jesus Christ is one simple word: Love.

Jesus showed us how to love by risking his life for people.

Eventually, you know that his love cost him his life. The risks finally caught up to him and he died loving people who didn’t love him back.

If I am to follow the example of my Christ, then I volunteer to be the first to take a risk. I am the first to risk reaching out to a stranger. I am the first to risk asking another person to share her life with me. I am the first to risk opening myself up. I am the first to risk being misunderstood. I am the first to risk that the responsibility for the relationship failing may fall on me. I am the first to risk that I will be the one for someone else to blame.

If the love of Christ does not dwell in me, this is as masochistic and self-serving as it sounds. But the Spirit of Christ loves enough to risk self to make it safe for others to enter relationship if they choose.

They may not choose. They may not choose because they misunderstand you.

If you are led by the loving Spirit of Jesus Christ, it is a risk you have to take.

The good news is that, if you are following the Spirit of Jesus Christ, you also know that that Spirit raises the dead. It is God’s singular and unstoppable will to put back together all things that broke apart. There is no relationship so broken that God will not put it back together again, good as new, sometime in the future. As surely as God raised the Christ from the dead, so will God raise from death whatever we kill by mistake or on purpose. This is the Gospel.

So, risk seeking to understand.

Then take the bigger risk of being misunderstood.

The relationship may fail and you may have to grieve it.

But if you believe in the Gospel, you know how it will all end up someday.

So take the risk in love.

Grace and peace.