Why you need to have that tough talk!

By Joe Castaneda I think most people know that life is fullest when we live, and experience it with people we love. It’s not that we don’t love our down-time, and our solo journeys, but even those times are enjoyed more when we return and share them with other people. I have several friends who love solo-adventures in hiking, touring and even in their world travel. But they always post their pics on facebook, they send shout-outs to friends on Instagram and Twitter and they are engaging friends in their journey, because life is fullest when we share it with others.

The problem with sharing life’s journeys is that people can be a pain! Nothing can disrupt your life, ruin your morning or suck the joy from your soul more than people! So while we love sharing life with others, we also know that others can bring the biggest challenges in our lives.

There are two responses to the conflicts we have with others. The first generally involves blaming, occasionally some name-calling, a lack of grace and/or personal understanding (although this response is can often be masked in martyrdom, making it appear like a healthy does of grace!), often encourages avoidance, the holding of grudges and is almost always rooted in fear, hurt, reactionism and a lack of forgiveness. This is the response of victimhood.

The other response involves owning ones part, never name-calling and is filled with grace out of the recognition that we all make mistakes. This second response encourages engagement, quick forgiveness and is rooted in faith, love and pro-action*. This is the path of personal responsibility, and the path for anyone wanting to live the Overboard Life.

Nobody likes confrontation, but if you’ve been avoiding that hard conversation with someone, you’ve been living in victimhood! In Matthew 18 Jesus gave some incredibly clear teaching about personal conflict, and His teaching requires us to embrace our responsibility in a matter, and to have hard conversations. In the passage Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone...” Notice the responsibility for engaging in the tough conversation rests with the one who has been offended, the one who has been hurt.

Victims love to sit back and wait for the resolution to come to them, but Jesus says the one who has been sinned against, is the one who should initiate the restoration process. Why? I think it’s because when we don’t take care of those issues, they turn from little things, into big things. Marriages don’t usually end because of just one event. Marriages that end in divorce usually end because a bunch of little things turn into some big things, and soon, what maybe could have been mended through a couple of meetings with a counselor or pastor, now can’t be mended with years of outside help. Friendships don’t usually end with one offense. Instead, years of friendship can be brought to a halt after a pattern has developed of responding in victimhood (silence, martyrdom, lies “Oh, it’s fine, that didn’t bother me...”) to those interpersonal conflicts.

Obedience to Jesus’ words can bring healing today, so that the hurts of the future will require stitches and a bandaid, and not relational amputation! Is it easy? Not usually! Is it best? Always!

Here are few other nuggets that will help you have those difficult conversations:

1. Make sure you check your own heart and actions in the matter: Jesus once told a group of people to “Take the plank out of your own eye, so that you can see the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye.” In other words, make sure you’ve taken care of your own business before you try to help someone else with theirs. What a visual picture! Can you imagine some guy walking around with a six foot long, 2x4 sticking out of his eye? Then he clumsily comes walking up to you and says, “Whoa bro, you’ve got some sawdust in your eye hole, let me help you get that out.” That’s ridiculous. Make sure you’re not plank guy, trying to help sawdust guy. Sawdust guy needs help, but first, get that plank taken care of! 2. Be ready to forgive. When we approach someone with a hard conversation, be ready to forgive them on the spot! Peter reminds us, “that love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Jesus told His disciples that if someone comes and asks you to forgive them, then do it. Paul said in Colossians that we need to forgive as Christ forgives us. And how does Jesus forgive? Every time you ask, He freely forgives. Now forgiveness isn’t an excuse to be someone’s doormat (don’t confuse forgiveness with martyrdom), but rather, forgiveness is the power you and I have to release someone else from a debt so that restoration is possible. 3. If you are constantly in conflict with others, check the mirror before you head out the door. I have a friend who is always at odds with people in their life. This person can’t go to the grocery store without getting into an argument with a worker, another shopper or with someone in the parking lot. It’s unreal. I’ve known them for years, and they are always in conflict. If you’re ready to have a tough talk with some one, just check and make sure you know who’s at fault. I’ve often found that when I’m ready to pounce on someone who has hurt me, the reality is, that I’m the one that is in the wrong. Instead of going to confront, I need to go and confess and ask for forgiveness.

Is there someone in your life that you need to have that tough talk with? If you want to live the Overboard Life, you can’t go through your days ignoring the problems that arise in the relationships you have. Sure, the tough talks don’t always go like we want, but I know when I follow God’s plan for relationships -- when I check my own heart, make sure I’m ready to forgive and make certain that I’m ready to confess my own faults -- things go a whole lot better than when I live as a victim, and do nothing.

So go ahead and take the plunge, even your tough talks will be better on the water!

Working through some heartache in your life? My first book, Project Joseph, was written to help people navigate the pain of relationships and the struggles that we all face in life. Check it out, and see if it might help you better become who God wants you to be!

Blast from the past!

While our pastor was preaching this past sunday, I was reflecting on some issues in my own life. I hate when a good preacher makes you do that. As a result, I wanted to write a blog that sounded a lot like a blog I had written almost exactly two years ago. After failing to rewrite my previously written thoughts, I'm reposting this post from September of 2011, but viewing it with fresh eyes. I hope you will, too.

It’s amazing how often illustrations for living the Overboard life are found in the most unexpected and unusual places. When I read the Bible, I love seeing how Jesus used water, bread, poor widows, fish, birds, money, boats, naked women caught in adultery and just about anything else to teach His disciples to live life out of the boat. A while back, I discovered lesson about the Overboard life from my back yard and a little skirmish I had with some Blackberry bushes. I wrote this a while ago and now seemed like a good time to share it with you.

[zoom in on author’s forehead as he enters trancelike state...he turns to the window and stares at a pile of cut-up and stomped-on brush...he clutches a bandaged finger...]

I spent the better part of two hours one morning last week, digging up some black berry bushes that have crossed over a barrier of which we had made a verbal agreement. I promised not to cut them down or poison them and they promised not to come past the fence line. Well wouldn’t you know it? apparently black berry bushes aren’t very good at keeping their word! During the fall and early spring, they moved into the SW corner of our yard so the battle was on.

After two hours of cutting away and digging, I learned some very important lessons about removing black berry bushes.  #1, don’t try to cut or dig them out while wearing shorts. #2, don’t forget to wear THICK gloves. #3, along with #2, don’t grab the roots bare handed, they have nasty little hook shaped thorns down there, too. #4, when you forget rules #2 and #3, your kids will think it’s hilarious when you place your hand between your knees, start jumping up and down while screaming something about black berry bushes, the devil and the fires of hell. #5, chasing your kids with the pruners after said incident is not advisable when your neighbor is a police officer. It was a very educational morning.

I also, interestingly enough, learned something about how to remove black berry bushes (bbbs). In this corner where the bbbs had taken over, the plants probably covered close to 100 square feet of land (a little 10’x 10’ area on the back 40). Although this is a lot of space, there were only 10-12 actual bbb stalks to be found. The plants grow horizontally as much as they grow vertically. In fact, one of the stalks had popped up on my neighbors side of the fence so I hopped over in order to remove the offending beast. This is when I found the deepest, darkest secret of all.

All 10-12 stalks where attached to the same “runner” root. About a 1/2” below the surface of the ground, this little demon root snaked it’s way all over the place and every one of the 10-12 stalks was some how connected to this evil creature. As I uprooted part of the stalk from my neighbors yard, I pulled up a portion of the beast and saw it went to a little 3-4 stalk out cropping on my side of the fence. I pulled it up there only to find that it zigged and zagged itself to another 4-5 stalk out cropping and then finally to the last 3-4 stalk outcropping. Of course, it originated from the other side of our previously agreed upon boundary, so this demon root was cut down and poisoned (it was the only humane way to deal with him). That was one week ago.

Today, I go back out there and found out the demon root had spawned a few lesser demons who were venturing even further from the

mason-dixon line. They too have been exterminated (in my best Arnold Schwartzeneggar voice)

Sneaky devils.

As I sipped an ice cold coca cola (the preferred drink of bbb killers everywhere!) after a couple more hours of smiting creepy crawlers, I reflected on something rather fitting. Those stinkin’ bbbs are a lot like sin that we leave unconfessed in our lives. You know, those “little” sins that we just ignore or pretend that some how God doesn’t see or won’t care about, those ones that we like to put into our closet and leave for a later time? The problem is, like the pesky bbbs in my yard, those sins don’t stay hidden, they don’t remain in the closet and we certainly can’t control them. Soon, a sin that only pops up once-in-a-while, takes root underground and before we know it, our heart is covered and being choked out.

Getting rid of sin isn’t an easy task, either, but like my bbbs, we have to do it at the root. We have to go after the sin, digging it out with the diligence that only comes from intimacy with God, poisoning it with the power of the Word and then persist in keeping a watchful eye so that it’s evil cousins don’t try to take back soil we’ve cleared. And like my bbbs, we must be wary of seasons in which the sin hibernates as it strengthens it’s roots and spreads itself in subtlety.

Some of my favorite words of Scripture are found in Psalm 119:9-11. Those familiar words of David have helped me fight sin on more than one occasion: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your Word. I seek you with all my heart, do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” David knew about subtle sins that take root and then take over.  When he strolled across the rooftops of his palace in 2 Samuel 12, he knew he’d see some “sites”. That habit became a demon root that eventually led David to adultery, murder, cover up and horrible deceit. If the man after God’s own heart can lose ground, I better make sure I’m taking a double shot of God’s Word in my life and applying it’s truth to every root of sin that crops up.

Victory over sin is a lot like victory over bbbs. You’ve got to attack it aggressively and dig it out by the roots. Along the way, you’re going to get stung and you might even bleed. But after a little dance and a chasing of the kids around the back of the house, the yard looks a lot better and it’s a clean look that goes well below the surface.

Indeed.

[return to author...he returns his glance to the paper before him...he smiles]

God is calling all of us out of the boat and out to the water where Jesus is building His Kingdom. He even uses devilishly annoying blackberry bushes to make His call heard. How has God taught you about the Overboard life using the world around you? If you feel brave enough, share your thoughts with us in the comments -- I’d love to hear your insights!

Go ahead, take the plunge -- life is better on the water!