“Is something wrong?” he asked tentatively.
“No. I’m fine.” I uttered, knowing the words were a lie as soon as they escaped my mouth. By the look on his face I could tell he recognised the lie too (anyone who’s ever met a woman could probably realise that “I’m fine” should set alarm bells ringing!).
He didn’t even realise his mistake. On describing my legs as “sturdy” (I’ll pause while you gasp and wince), he thought he was paying me a compliment. In all the RomCom-esque romantic scenarios I’ve ever envisaged for myself, the describing of my legs as “sturdy” hadn’t come into the picture. I haven’t read about any beautiful women in the magazines being called sturdy and at the gym they definitely are not pitching their goal as to be sturdy. Sturdiness, by western beauty standards, is not something a woman should aspire to. However, in Nigeria (where my husband is originally from) sturdiness is a desirable quality, as I found out when he told me that if I was skinny he wouldn’t fancy me. Another romantic complement 😉.
Anyone who has ever heard a woman say “I’m fine” understands that she is not, in fact, fine- we’ve all been there, right? Miscommunication is part of human life (I wrote about communication in my last post, go and have a wee look if you’re interested), and as a couple who were born into two very different cultures, my husband and I are very well acquainted with this now.
Just now we are seeing many of the younger generation leaving the church and it has me wondering; are we miscommunicating the gospel?
Could it be that we are clearly communicating the truths of gospel-hope, when in actuality we are hiding these truths underneath judgement and hypocrisy? I saw a quote from Rich Villodas recently that said:
“It really is a curious evangelism strategy to despise the people you are trying to convert to Jesus.”
Are we showing hate where we should be showing love?
To take it further, I wonder if the gaps in where we show love have become so open that other “religions” are filling the space. I find that in conversations on racism, Christians can be quick to disengage on the basis that CRT and the BLM movement are Marxist and unchristian. These theories and organisations came about because people could see a gap in what the church was teaching. While the Bible shows a fuller picture of God and his plan for reconciliation, Christian churches want reconciliation without addressing the injustice. Enter CRT, filling the gap in the market. If we act out the gospel, and fulfil the commandment to love our neighbour then our young people won’t be swayed from the church- they won’t need to be because they will have a firm foundation in Biblical truth.
Having a firm foundation means that we can discuss questions people might have without dismissing them. For example, calling anti-racists “divisive” and “woke” is antithetical to the the reconciliation that anti-racism is striving for, and if everyone comes to the conversation as Christian equals then it will be a far more productive (& loving!) conversation. Often terms are used with different meanings for each listener which shows us the importance of clear communication, so it is worth checking what the other person means by a specific term or phrase. Questions help us clarify and understand things more deeply so we shouldn’t shy away from them. We also shouldn’t be so focused on what our point is that we forget to listen to answers that are given.
In my marriage, miscommunication is common. We even miscommunicate about how to deal best with miscommunication, it’s a whole cycle! I process in my head, needing quiet and space, whereas my husband processes out loud, needing talk and togetherness. We have learned to compromise by appreciating that generally one of us is more vulnerable in any particular situation or disagreement; when it’s me we have some space to process, and when it’s him we talk it through together. This isn’t a perfect process, and we’re rubbish at it sometimes- I still say I’m fine when I’m actually seething and sometimes he compliments me in an entirely offensive way, but when we come to appreciate the reality of miscommunications we can handle it more effectively. (Though I wish we had handled the rubbish compliments a bit more before having children. My son told my mum that her cake was “actually quite nice” last weekend and while Abe thought he was showing gratitude for tasty treats I was mortified at the implication that every other cake has been awful but these were surprisingly good…)
I think churches could be more welcoming of thoughtful discussion, with a variety of voices in order to facilitate reconciliation. If we didn’t shy away from tricky topics but, through considering what the Bible says as well as experts in the areas, had open discussions and finding common ground then we could encourage gospel hope-fuelled action and see glimpses of “on earth as in heaven”.
(also to note: For many issues the problem is less about miscommunication and more about disagreement, but even then communicating well is a really important part of disagreeing well and disagreeing well is something we could all do with improving on, and I think that’s a topic for another day!)
which of these checklists are we following?
myafrocelticclan 