Truth Be Told

This past Sunday in my adult Bible fellowship class, AKA Sunday school, we continued our study of the book of James. We have been going through the book a couple verses at a time and will continue to work our way through the book for a while. This past Sunday we were looking at James 1:19-22, a section where James uses a modified version of the sandwich approach.

The sandwich approach is a coaching technique in which the coach praises the player, gives constructive criticism, and then praises the player again. The idea of the sandwich approach is that the player will not hear the criticism unless he or she first knows that the coach cares about the player.

In James 1:19, he calls his audience "my beloved brothers," he is telling them that he loves them. And then, because he loves them, he goes on to tell them some hard truths. He tells them to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. He also tells them to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.

I don't know about you, but if James, the brother of Jesus was telling me those things, I probably would be squirming in my seat, a little uncomfortable. Even though I wouldn't necessarily be stoked about what was being said, I would know that James loved me as a sister, he says that first, before he says anything else.

As I got to thinking about this passage, I started thinking about who I have in my life that loves me enough to tell me the truth. Who cares enough to tell me the things that they know will make me squirm, but that they know I need to hear?

That thought of course led to the wonder, are the friends that are unwilling to tell me hard truths, unwilling to do anything but agree with me all the time, unwilling to risk rejection or the friendship because I might not like what they have to say really that good of friends?

Proverbs 27:17 says "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."

I don't know that we as Christians can sharpen each other, propel each other on to deeper relationships with the Lord if we don't sometimes in love tell each other the truth.

I am thankful for the people in my life who are willing to tell me the things I don't want to hear, after they remind me that they love me, because it's only in the telling and changing that both they and I can grow more like Christ.