What if we are running from the thing we need most — namely, to be caught?
To be named and seen and noticed and corrected. It’s not regular in our culture, but the Bible talks about it a lot:
... if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. — Galatians 6:1
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account... — Hebrews 13:17
Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. — Ephesians 4:25
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. — Matthew 18:15
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. — Proverbs 15:22
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. — Ephesians 5:21 NIV
These are only a few of the dozens and dozens of verses and passages that speak to this idea of submission, accountability, and both receiving and giving loving correction.
I’m often asked about what I think makes friendships work, about what I think “authentic community” actually is, and while there are several aspects to that vision, at the top of the list would be the practice of saying hard things and the practice of listening to and receiving those hard things.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. — Proverbs 27:17 NIV
We have the opportunity to both sharpen and be sharpened, if only we’ll see our relationships as the anvil that they are. And yet who in their right mind wants to sign up for being the piece of metal that’s getting reshaped? Tortuous flames, the pounding against an unforgiving surface, the bending and prodding and pain. Nobody thinks they want that experience, but we do. We actually crave it. We just don’t always know how to have it.
