This life thing is so fascinating.
When I was at home with my parents and siblings I had to do what my parents (and big sister) told me to do. There was little room for questions and definitely short shrift for any rebellion or refusal (especially from the big sister).
As I grew up though, I was being told what to do less and less by my parents. They never told me which university to go to – they let me choose for myself. They didn’t hawk-like control my time at university. Even the requests made of me when I returned home from university for the holidays were just that – requests. It wasn’t as though I could consider myself equals with them (especially the big sister – notice a pattern?), but the relationship was just not the same. Now I was making decisions that they did not agree with but in no way insisted I did what they said (even the big sister was in on that one).
At the same time, although I realised children still had to be told what to do to a large degree relations with adults could not be based on such a deal. I couldn’t tell a mate what to do in that authoritative manner, unless we were in a working relationship and even then the manner in which ‘orders were given’ had to bear in mind it wasn’t a child I was talking to, it was an adult. (OK, some of the adults were still behaving like children, but you would know what a mistake you made if you dared ever to treat them as their mental age.)
What does that have to do with anything? Hold that thought, it will come out in the wash before the entry’s over.
So if I couldn’t merely tell you what to do like my parents told me, how could I get you to do what I wanted? How could there be movement on your part in line with recommendations and suggestions I made? All of a sudden from telling and forcing comes this beautiful thing called reasoning. Now I knew if you were ever going to do anything I wanted there first of all had to be a level of reasoning and understanding between. For example my request, depending on the nature, had to be made in the context of a knowing relationship. Even then to overcome any resistance it had to be in your best interests or at least more favourable interests to comply. It was not just a case of pleasing myself, I had to please you in some way as well.
That is where the reasoning comes into its own.
The biggest place that this reasoning deal is experienced is in those most important adult relationships – close friendships and of course marriage. The other person comes from a different background to me, with a different mentality and different perspective on issues. They may not agree with my initial stance and why should they? So with those factors in mind it becomes all the more important to establish common ground and then converse over issues from there. It’s not about compromise, necessarily, it is about flexibility and openness – there is the very real likelihood the initial desire wasn’t quite right and needed to be amended or even thrown out altogether.
Carrying all that into relationships makes things even more interesting. I don’t get my way, just like that. The way I wanted at the beginning can end up being a completely different way by the end of things. Particularly on matters of faith and Christian development my wife won’t conform to something merely because I tell her and whip out the scriptures to ‘prove’ it. I won’t just take on her suggestions merely because of her ‘spiritual discernment’. We’ll both be open to what God is saying. We’ll give it thought if it needs thought. Crucially we will both allow reasoning to take place and ensure that the significant decisions we make are made out of conviction, so that there can be no comeback as if to suggest that ‘somebody told me to do it’ and you had no choice.
I am not a child anymore in that sense and the only sense that I am is in the way that I have to do what my heavenly Father tells me to do and He tends to inform me in a reasonable way. Not that my parents didn’t (although when it came to the big sister …) but this spiritual dynamic in growing as a child of God and realising that my wife is on the same journey is a very humbling position and allows me to be more opent to reasoning. Not there yet, completely, one or two little chinks to iron out (No. 16 of 101 Understatements of the Millennia), but by the grace of God things are being worked out.
After all, this life thing is so fascinating.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 