Even the General Authorites have to counsel with the very wicked and call them on the carpet and judge righteously and lovingly. They still have to judge a wicked person to the courts, excommunicate a member of the church, etc. And since they have the wisdom and power of their position they can judge the person at their level of sin.

We can do it by, as you say, our court system, or our forgiveness, but not forgetfulness.

Six years ago my son committed suicide at 15 1/2. The last person to see him in a position of authority had humiliated and embarrassed him in front of his peers. They were not nice peers, they were some of his bullies.

This devastated him so completely that he came home and said he would rather die then return to this school, which he only attended for on auto tech class.
It wasn’t his regular high school which was designed to be kind to kids with his type of disabilities, which part of it was ADHD. Anyway, he wrote this in his suicide note.

Now when all was said and done. We did not feel much love for this person in authority. My husband wrote him a long letter and it seemed that he was compelled to write back from the school district. We thought of sueing the school for their lack of concern and responsibility. As the last confrontation from this person to my son was not the first, but 4 months of it.

We are not in the habit of sueing people, the cost of it would be for nothing, my son is still dead. And I’m sure that this will haunt this man for the rest of his life. Christ did pay the price for incidents like this, and for us why drag this man down.

We all have weaknesses and sometimes don’t really know what an impact a statement or act affects someone. So Bro Wally, I think is trying to open our eyes to this. I know that I will never associate with this person and the pain does ease up.

I also don’t know the Lord’s plan either. He has protected this son for 15 1/2 years from an earlier death, that something in his brain was not functioning right that caused him to take many risks due to having lots of energy, and the inability to think faster on the consequences of his actions. He was a loving person and helped out many people in his day to day life.

I also believe that Christ knows what is in our hearts and judges righteously
as I believe that my son was saved from an earlier death to the age he matured too. We also didn’t understand that ADHD kids can suffer from depression, but is hard to tell when they are self-medicating by riding his bike everywhere, he was lean and strong as well as kind and can get his feelings hurt easily due to the unkindness of others.

I believe that the Lord could have stopped him if He wanted to. But he allowed this to happen for reasons we will find in the life hereafter.

My eldest son went through the temple for him and I just feel that he is a missionary to our ancestors & to those like him that haven’t received the gospel.

We miss him very much, and look forward to seeing him again in a perfect body.

I should admit that I am not good at doing this. I have seen it done, admired it, and am trying to learn it.

May the Lord bless you.
Wally

The Lord’s counsel is for us to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. So your older daughter might pray for the gift of discernment. You might help her discover what to look for in character. (For example, people who speak well of others are often people of high character.) Discernment may take time to develop, but the Spirit will keep her safe as she seeks and heeds His counsel.

Blessings to you and your daughters.

Wally

You raise many good points. Some of our differences are semantic. For example, the scriptural word judgment describes a behavior that is condemned in most occurrences I am aware of in scripture. In contrast, discernment is endorsed by the brethren. In discernment, we use pure knowledge to bless others. Discernment may be comparable to righteous judgment–the kind inspired by the Spirit. It is quite unique–because it is filled with godly light.

I have never recommended that we endorse sin. I always recommend that we cultivate healthy relationships. However, God occasionally sends a difficult person into our experience in order to stretch us.

Blessings,
Wally

I think you’re right. When a work setting is consistently destructive, you’re not required to stay. Many times it makes sense to move to a less toxic workplace. The article is intended to suggest that sometimes we letter ourselves be polarized when we could be peacemakers. Leaving is not necessarily polarizing.

Blessings to you,
Wally

I wish I had your comment a few days ago because I would have loved to use it in a talk that I gave on Mothers Day. After hearing about how some mothers dread Mothers Day because of feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, I tried hard to not paint a perfect picture of mothers. I wish I had spoken more of the impact that mothers have through the love that they give, and your comment would have been perfect. Not all women sew, cook, have an immaculate home, etc., but all men and women can love those around them.

It is very, very easy for us to claim we are judging and rebuking in the spirit of love. But the question is, if we are trying to impact someone’s thought process and behavior is judgment and rebuke effective? Does the person we are “calling out” experience our comments as love? Is that person then motivated and likely to change?

There is a quote by Jean Vanier. It comments about how our attitude, not just our actions, matter when offering assistance. But parts of the quote are instructive when considering how we best impact others we perceive to be making mistakes.

“To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude, ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.’ We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.”

There are extreme situations such as abuse in which we must take appropriate action to protect others or ourselves.

But in the vast majority of cases in which we believe someone isn’t behaving as they should, if we attempt to change them with judgements and rebukes and shame, then we risk crushing them. We risk the result of them giving up altogether, thinking they can’t do it or all is already lost. We risk them viewing church and/or our relationship with them as hostile–to be avoided.

If we say something that the other person experiences as crushing, that is not received as love regardless of our claimed intent. Love is experienced as a building up process. Love is guiding someone towards a recognition of the best he or she can be and encouragement that he or she can become that. Love is a revealing of the light within.

While in this miserable condition, a brother-in-law, that is a bit more cognitively challenged than myself, pitched a bit of a fit and aimed it at me. Instead of being the true Christian I strive to be, I was short terse and snappy. I don’t believe I have ever read a recording of our Lord reacting in such a way. How could I call myself a Christian with that behavior? Not to mention that the echo in my mind’s chambers was; “whoso shall offend one of these little ones” – though he is 45 years of age, he is like a child and I should have “put my arm around the boy” and said; “Oops. You knocked your sister-in-law down.”

I read Recreational Repenting of Others right after this had occurred. I had to laugh – not with Satan who was laughing about reeling us both in on that less than loving exchange but, with the recognition of the absolute correctness of your words of absolute truth.

I don’t know the reaction of your other readers, outside the 3 preceding me but, I loved how you presented this very clear mirror. I liken this to one of those mirrors I really love because I look so much better in its reflection, with the twist that your mirror makes me see how I can be so much better.

Thank you!