Bouncebackedness: The Crushing

Once I took a spiritual gifts test that supposedly showed me one of my two spiritual strengths was mercy. I was relieved to see it because I figured I could avoid confrontation. After all, if I’d had discernment I’d know when my brothers and sisters needed correction, and I’d have an obligation to confront them. And who needs that drama?

I had the good sense to know it isn’t over when you deliver a (hopefully) loving rebuke because you’ll spend forever worrying that your words weren’t received the right way.  Maybe someone is even watching you just for the opportunity to show you up and call out a hypocrite?  And then, when do you know if you’re expressing your discernment to others, versus a less spiritual arrogance or discomfort? What if you bring condemnation and division instead of restoration because you didn’t have enough discernment about your own discernment? Yeech. Pass, on that burden. Mercy it is, for me, because I assume it’s hugs all around and nursing the wounds for people, once the big standard-bearers come through with their needed rebuke.

Ruminating might be the right word for Paul’s tone in much of II Corinthians.  In Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthian Church, he gave a frank dressing-down of shameful behaviors. That’s tricky to deliver long-distance, and Paul had agonized that he “wrote as I did, so that when I came I would not be distressed by those who should have made me rejoice,” and “that even in Troas where the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind… .” (II Corinthians 2:3, 12) This concern followed him back through Macedonia until he is finally assured that the local church has bounced back in a godly way from his words. “Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed… .” (II Corinthians 7:8-9).

Just a few years ago, the word “bouncebackability” was added to a new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary – and I have never had the ability to bounce back from it, since resilience has an identical meaning with the added perquisite of being an accepted, real word. I can recognize that, in Christ, Paul was able to bounce back from his own anxiety over his correction to the Corinthians. Helping him, I’m sure, was the Holy Spirit allowing him to discern that It had inhabited his words, and they reaped healing. But that is perhaps the challenge of operating in discernment, or any spiritual gift: knowing when to properly use it, and having to wait in faith for your spirit-directed actions to bear fruit.

Maybe like Paul, when we bounce back from second-guessing ourselves our faith is restored and rewarded. But it’s also good to make sure we bounce back in God, not in ourselves, and remember where to place our confidence.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: De Ann Sturdivant