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Two self-assessment questions to start:
There are more questions I could ask, but these attitudes are enough to help you assess your heart toward those you care about and want to serve. If any of these things reflect a consistent pattern in your life toward others, the first thing you need to do to better position yourself to help them is to change yourself. Being redemptive in the lives of other people starts in your heart toward God, not theirs.
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
Ask the Lord to help you follow Paul’s advice by carefully considering the people you are motivating to change and how you are motivating them. They are not like you; they are different from you, and it would be helpful to understand how they are different so it does not trip you up when you come alongside them.
Joe knows how to get things done. He is a successful guy. His reputation and business are well-known in the community. People like him and come to him to learn his secret sauce for success.
On the surface, there is nothing wrong with what you see in Joe, but after you begin to look a little deeper, his secret sauce is not something you want to partake. Joe is a controller who demands his employees do things his way.
His methods work because his employees need a job. They are willing to put up with Joe as long as he pays them well. Joe keeps churning along, raking in the dough. Though he is a “success” on the business front, he is a frustrated and unsuccessful husband, father, and friend.
The work methods he implements in his home do not bring the same results. His preconceived ideas of what his family members should be are not being received well because they are more forced than nurtured. This method confuses Joe because he knows he is right; he wants a loving wife and obedient children.
“What’s wrong with that? This is what God wants.”
It may be what God wants, but God does not force righteousness on anyone. The Lord creates contexts of grace and invites people into those contexts while motivating them by that grace. The hardcore law method that Joe is implementing does not motivate people to change–at least not for the right reasons or in long-term sustainable ways. His methods do the opposite: They discourage and exasperate people.
The Lord’s grace method motivates us to choose righteousness. He does not demand our obedience or foist it upon us as though the only thing that matters to Him is results. The process of change matters too. The Lord keeps the end goal in mind (Hebrews 12:1-2) as well as the methods that lead to that end.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance (Romans 2:4).
Our loving, heavenly Father could have accomplished His purposes for us without us. I suppose. He could have made us righteous, but by doing so, it would have marginalized what our relationship should be like with Him.
Our relationships would be more robotic than human/divine reciprocality. Joe prefers the robot approach with his employees and family. Hired hands hard-wired to accomplish his goals–a strategy that is blowing up his family.
His employees can/won’t leave, but his children are not as obligated or bound. They won’t “quit” the family now because they are young and his wife is not willing to “quit” (divorce) the marriage–at least not at this time. Joe has put his family between a rock and a hard place.
The tension in the home moves between tense peace and combustible anger. It has yet to occur to Joe how the outcome was never meant to be his to determine (1 Corinthians 3:6).
God has not called us to determine the outcome with people but to trust Him for those results, even if the results are not to our liking. God has called us to faithfully and gratefully work the process while leaving the outcome to Him. The problem is that Joe wants to plant, water, and control the growth.
James called this arrogance. (See James 4:13-16)
A man who tries to control the process and the outcome does not need God because he is a god. There is no room in Joe’s world for God because Joe has everything under control–at least that is the illusion he wants to perpetuate.
The problem is that Joe is not a good god. Many of his employees are angry with him, his wife is angry at him, and his children are growing in their resentment by the day, which will turn into teen rebellion once they become courageous enough to share their true thoughts with him.
This is what happens in many marriage and family debacles when one person in the family–usually a parent–believes he/she knows how things ought to be. Based on their belief of rightness, they proceed to mandate or legislate the outcome. This inevitably leads to disaster.
I suspect most of the time the parent is right in what they want to do. Their rightness is not in debate here. The problem is when the parent tries to mandate righteousness on the children. They may be sincerely trying to avert dangers and disasters they see gathering on the horizon of the child’s life, but legislating morality is a multifaceted problem that needs divine perspective and intervention.
Joe could get away with his tactics and strategies at work because his employees would either double down and do things his way or they would leave. Joe has bought into his culture’s view of success. It’s called a win. Jesus dying on a tree was a “win,” too.
Joe can’t get away with running roughshod over his family. His way of doing things creates a blind spot that he really cannot see. His reaction leaves him with three options: (1) hire robots, (2) change how he treats people, or (3) continue to live and work in familial dysfunction while alienating himself from everyone within his sphere of influence.
If he hires robots for work and marries one for home, he can program them to do what he wants them to do. It would be a perfect world. It would be his world, according to his rules, interpretations, and applications.
If there were anything he did not like about his Robo World or if he made a mistake (not likely) or came to understand things differently (an anomaly), he could upgrade to 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0. There is an infinite number of iterations he could create. He would be able to accomplish his goals with little relational angst, effort, or challenges.
The Lord understands the doctrine of progressive sanctification. He will take any person at any time–just as they are–and relate to them in such a way that motivates them toward change. He patiently works the process of change without mandating artificial timelines for change.
Though He is a bottom-line Being, He is aware of the process. In fact, one of the blessings about the process with God is how the process of change deepens our relationship with Him.
The ongoing process of change gives Him opportunities to demonstrate His love to us, even while we are imperfectly following Him (Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 11:1). He does not respond to us according to what we should receive; He provides love ad infinitum (Psalm 103:10-14; Romans 5:8).
The word Adam means red man or man of the dirt (Genesis 2:7). We are dust (Psalm 103:14). I am a dirt clod, and you are too. The Lord knows this, and He loves playing in the dirt. He knows His audience (John 2:24-25).
He knows life cannot be about present perfection but a process that matures within a context of loving leadership that moves us into ever-unfolding Christlikeness.
Paul talked about this idea when he wrote to the Thessalonians. He wanted to make sure they understood how different people are and how it would be wrong to treat everybody the same way. Listen to his urging:
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
There are three people groups in this sentence: (1) the unruly, (2) the small-souled, and (3) the physically or mentally challenged. Then he closes his appeal by saying they should be patient with all of them.
Paul was not talking about the result but the process–how they treated people who were imperfectly plodding toward what they hoped would be Christlikeness. Paul urged them to think about the people they were interacting with on a daily basis.
This is even more important when it comes to your wife, children, close friends, and a local church. Everybody is different; each person requires specialized and customized attention.
Cooperating with God in the transformation of lives is an amazing honor. If our primary focus is the result over the process, there is a good chance we will miss the blessing of engaging our friends in mutually benefiting transformational opportunities that will elevate the fame of Jesus while maturing our relationships.
Did you know your spouse–husband and wife–is a double-damaged person? Your spouse was born in sin (in Adam) and parented by people who were born in sin (in Adam). This means your spouse came into the world broken and broken people parented your spouse.
You received double damaged goods when you married your spouse. No matter how great the parents were, they were not perfect. Your spouse’s parents did not entirely sanctify your spouse. More than likely, there are traces of residual problems that were caused by Adam and their parents.
It is imperative that you become a student of your spouse so you can cooperate with God in the redemptive narrative that He is writing for your spouse. Too often, the newly wedded person expects things from their spouse without carefully discerning the damaged goods, with the purpose of discipling them into Christlikeness.
Sometimes a wife will say something like, “This is not what I signed up for.” I must ask, “And you signed up for what? A perfect man or a work-in-progress?” Your husband is a dirt clod.
If you are demanding a result without helping him get to the goal of glorifying God, you need to rethink your motives and your strategies while recalibrating your perspectives to God-centered ones.
You should never jump over the process to get to the goal. It does not work that way. Here are a few helpful questions to help orient your thinking about the process of change, which can apply to anyone you’re helping to change.
A Guard Your Heart Moment: Even if you do it right, the result you hope for may not happen. You’ll know if your motives are tuned by the gospel if you try to do it right regardless of the outcome. You’re doing it for God’s fame more than any personal preferences that may be meaningful to you.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).