How do you respond?

Life is crazy busy, especially around the holidays! It’s a super exciting time and you want to do it all, you want to attend all the parties, and get together with people you know and love. You have work parties to make face at, and if you’re anything like me you have a lot of people you love that are expecting you to feel cared for by you, too. But there are times where you just can’t do it all. Things and life get so busy, you are trying to do the best you can to keep all the plates spinning, but you know eventually they are going to start to fall. When the plates do start to fall….what then starts to happen? You probably can finish this sentence for me…..the people in your life start to feel uncared for or left out, and then that creates this whole other tension to deal with in the midst of your madness anyway, am I right? So how do you respond when those instances occur? 

Yesterday was a shining example of how I respond. I get defensive. I immediately say what I have been trying to do, and what the other person hasn’t done. I talk about all the ways they need to make an effort if they truly want to see me/talk to me/ be with me, then THEY need to make the initiative. I talk about all the ways I have tried to make an effort, and get rejected with a lack of response on their end…….and then it was as if I lifted out of the situation and heard myself. I heard how defensive I was, I heard how I was blaming, and I heard the selfishness in my tone. This is not how Jesus would want me to respond. 

James 1:9 says, “Know this my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." ESV 

I was not quick to hear; quite honestly I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t slow to speak; I started spouting off every way I thought I was justified. And I certainly wasn’t slow to anger, because I felt wrongly judged when what was being said about me wasn’t even fully true. This is not how my Jesus would want me to respond. 

As His Spirit quieted my mouth, I was able to stop the conversation and called it what is was… I am being defensive and took ownership of that. I was able to take a step back and really think about the situation, and how parts were true and how other parts weren’t true. 
So how do I respond? There is a very big people pleasing side of me, which is why I get defensive because its proving that I can NOT do it all and I don’t like that feeling. 
For me, whenever I find my self doing in this, whenever I respond like this, I am going to take a step back and look at what “true” reality is. Not all that was said to me was “true” reality. It was jaded by emotion, and it was jaded by their hurt/baggage they bring to the situation too. So as I think clearly, I can only change me. I can only be responsible for how I respond…and I am to respond by….being quick to listen. I am going to think about their heart in the situation, and think about things from their perspective. I am going to be slow to speak. Not trying to justify all that I am doing. Not to make my voice heard so I can be ‘right’ in this. I am to be slow to speak. Words not coming out, mouth shut….listening.  I don’t know about you but that is hard to do!! 

Then I am to be slow to anger. It is hard not to get angry when someone has an offense against you. Its SUPER easy to get your feathers all ruffled and become defensive. It takes a much higher level of self-control to not respond! 

But this is what I am going to put into practice, and how I am going to respond. I may mess up here and there. I may have to stop more conversations and say hey you know what I feel like I’m being defensive and proceed with an apology. But I just refuse to keep being the same person. Its time for me to start responding differently too.