Do you have people in your life that you trust more than yourself? I have a group of people (Danny Silk, Bill Johnson and Dann Farrelly to name a few) who have given me feedback over the years and proactively pointed out things to me; things about myself that I couldn’t see clearly. Without this wise counsel I would not be the man that I am today. Is it painful to get feedback? Oh, you bet it is! However, it’s imperative to learn how to receive it if we want to grow up
into the men and women God is calling us to be!
So let’s take a look at today’s Flashback Friday video as I share a story of when Danny called me out on being arrogant (yikes!):
In a nutshell:
• Danny Silk, who I’ve known since we were kids, called me into his office a few years back. He only had 15 minutes to tell me what he was thinking before he left on a two week trip.
• He told me that I was arrogant and that my arrogance was leaking out on people. Ouch!
He told me three examples of when he’d seen this. I defended myself, and then Danny had to leave.
• Side note: I thought maybe we could text each other about it later, but it’s never a good idea to resolve conflict over text! You get to guess the tone that someone texts you in, and usually you read it in the tone and mood you’re in.
• I laid awake that night and then finally at 3am I began to pray about Danny’s issue with me.
• The Lord said to
me
, “If you don’t trust someone more than you trust yourself, then you can’t get out of deception, because the nature of deception is you don’t know you’re being deceived.” The funny thing is I had preached that a few weeks before!
• God asked me if I trusted Danny more than myself, and He reminded me that Danny loves me and wouldn’t have brought this up to hurt me.
• I decided to believe that Danny was right because I have to trust someone more than I trust myself. Within a few seconds I began to see clearly that he was right about my motive, arrogance.
• The next week I apologized to our staff and the men who I had been arrogant towards. I made sure to clean up my messes, even the ones that Danny didn’t know about.
• We all get into moments where we can’t see clearly, where we know what we’d tell someone else in the situation but we have no idea what to tell ourselves.
• It’s in those moments where we need wise counsel that we trust more than we trust ourselves. You need your proactive council to come around you and share the truth.
LETTING DOWN DEFENSIVENESS
In times when you can’t see clearly you have to rely on your wise counsel to tell you the truth. I don’t mean that everyone’s opinion should have weight in your life because that can lead to an exhausting pattern of people-pleasing.
But there should be a select few, who you trust, have connection and love with, and who you know want the best for you. I think we’d all save a lot of time and heartache if we took that feedback and realized it’s coming from a place of love. If I had just gone to the Lord with it right away I wouldn’t have spent a whole day, and stayed up late into the night, trying to think of ways to convince Danny that he was wrong!
So the next time someone you trust gives you feedback, as hard as it may be, I want you to remember this: “If you don’t trust someone more than you trust yourself, then you can’t get out of deception, because the nature of deception is you don’t know you’re being deceived.” How have you found your people?
I’d love to hear any other stories or comments below!
