React vs Respond

Responding entails control, whereas reacting does not, in that it is inherently an emotional or unconsidered action. Responding is something more considered, in that it entails taking time to organize your thoughts before you say or do anything.

If you find yourself in a situation wherein someone seemingly stonewalls you into what feels like an unexpected interrogation session, do not get angry or flustered, but rather take control of the situation to your best advantage by either asking them to postpone the interaction until you are more fully prepared, or simply politely excusing yourself from the situation until a better suited time and place. Please ensure that you don’t try this when you are in a scheduled meeting or discussion on that topic or an associated topic, where you have already been allowed sufficient time to prepare, as that will likely come across as being simply rude or insubordinate.

If someone is attempting to get you to buy in to doing things their way, or use a tool they prefer to use to manage certain things, it is usually best to not simply make statements expecting compliance like a dictator, but rather to equip and teach people and thus obtain buy-in. Otherwise people will not respond well, but actually react and ignore you, or tell you to ‘get knotted.’

A big part of reacting versus responding is that we listen but do not hear properly. We can have a tendency to jump ahead in the conversation and assume we hear the other party saying something we deduce from what they started saying, but they never actually said or intended to say it. This may stem from our own insecurity, or overactive sensitivity, or inappropriately personalizing things. Listening attentively is a life skill that needs to be practiced and mastered over time.

Bear in mind that there are those self-centered and self-absorbed individuals whose heads are so far up their own anal cavities that their brains receive insufficient oxygen to give them proper perspective.

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God’s character is not affected nor changed by our circumstances or experiences, so, if we blame God for our circumstances and get angry at him accordingly, what we are really doing is making our circumstances our god and not believing that God is in fact larger/greater than our circumstances and will always love us and work for what is best for us.

Are we not trusting God enough, or are we trusting Him too much? Is our relationship with God strong and deep/heart-felt enough that we can clearly hear His prompting? Or is it simply us judging ourselves and not giving Him enough credit that He will always do what is best for us, even if we don’t see it that way in the moment?

Jesus came to earth so that we can be reconciled to God. Our sin starting with Adam and Eve broke our close relationship and intimacy with God (He walked with them in the garden before they ate of the forbidden fruit). He did not come to earth to simply give us a gift that we could choose to do with as we wish. If that were the case, we could ignore or discard the gift. But, if we treat the gift as the means to opening the door to relationship with God, we then enter into what a relationship entails for it to succeed, which is to work at the relationship, communicating with the other party and learning more about them so as to facilitate understanding and intimacy.

Behaviour follows understanding, in that we respond to God’s grace in our good works/deeds as we carry out God’s plan for our lives, for the good of others and for His glory and the growth of His kingdom (see James 2:14-17).

It is wise to ask God for direction first. Per James 5:7-9, “When you are wronged, wait patiently on the Lord…”.

It is usually also wise to allow time to clarify our thoughts and how we should act, waiting for God’s prompting and guidance, which usually takes the form of a Scripture resonating with you or what seems like your conscience being clear and you feeling at peace about a particular course of action, as opposed to feeling anxiety and discomfort that doesn’t seem to go away about your chosen course of action. See 1 Samuel 24, where David committed his cause into God’s hand and let God be his deliverer.

Remember that there is a difference between a responsibility and a concern. You may be concerned about someone else’s situation, but it may well not be your responsibility to do anything about it specifically, and so taking on that burden of responsibility might end up being to your detriment (because it is not part of God’s plan for your life).

See Proverbs 13:16, 14:15-16, 29, 15:1, 18, 16:1,3,9,32, 17:27,18:2, 15, 19:21, 20:24.

Per Matthew 5: 38-48, we respond to someone who hurts us by not retaliating or seeking revenge, but rather show them that we are not bound by earthly things or circumstances, and let them have them if they feel that they need them more than we do. We can act independently from their actions because we know that our identity is in Christ, and our Father provides all we require, so we can act in genuine love. See also Ephesians 4:26-27. This is, however, easier said than done in reality. We can find ourselves having a self-defensive knee-jerk reaction to someone criticizing us by ‘attacking them’ with the fact that most people do not respond well to criticism, especially not from those closest to them, and that the other party is even more closed to criticism than you are. Rather bite your tongue, stew on it, and wait for a properly considered response later.

Remember that God is Love per 1 John 4:8. I took this as an exercise to use in life group to challenge members to see how many words that describe God’s character we could come up with that started with each letter of this all importance verse. The result is as follows:

G: Gentle, great, glorious, goodness, giving, generous, guiding, grave, growth.

O: Open, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent,

D: Dad, directing, doting, devoted, discipline, dedicated.

I: Inclusive, inheritance, inspiration, integrity, ingenuity.

S: Sharing, sanctification, self-control, self-denial, servant hearted, strength, salvation, shepherd, sign, spirit, steadfastness, sacrificing, solid, sound, savior.

L: Loving, lenient, leading, light, lamb, lion, life, lord, living.

O: Order, obedience, oath.

V: Virtuous, valuing, vine, victory, vision, voice, vindicating.

E: Everlasting, endless, embracing, endearing, educating, encouraging, eternal, example, equipping, empowering, enlightenment, emboldening.

Other descriptive words we also came up with included: Awesome, tolerant, comforting, caring, kind, present, humble, wisdom, patient, persevering, just, fair, power, triune, provider, knowledge, peace and father.

Per Joyce Meyer’s 7 CD/DVD box set on the Fruit of the Spirit, Love and Self-Control are the book-ends of the fruits, in that it all starts with love, and without self-control, it is virtually impossible to live out the other fruits. How do we respond to God’s love for us? Live out His two greatest commandments to us per Matthew 22:37-39.

Love Openly, Virtuously and Endlessly. Help and guide others lovingly.

See 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 for details of what love truly is.