I want you to take a second and define honor in your own words? What does it look like in your life and how do you show honor to others?
I’ll come back to this in a minute, but I want to tell you where this is coming from. If you read my previous blog you saw that in the last week we’d traveled over 40 hours on hot, overcrowded buses and hiked up and down mountains to the point of exhaustion. It was an incredible experience and we got to do some really cool things along the way, but it was without a doubt the most frustrating week yet on the race for me personally. I usually don’t get frustrated that easily, but that wasn’t the case this past week.
When traveling I want to know how long it’s going to take to get there and what the plan is going to be after arriving. As I’m quickly learning though I’m not going to have that luxury while I’m on this journey. As someone who is 6’ 4” tall, traveling is not the most comfortable experience. God is definitely teaching me through this. He’s been teaching me first that it’s not about my comfort and second that as Christians there are no off days from ministry and I still need to honor those around me. Even when I’m stuck on a bus for 16 straight hours I’m still ministering with my words and actions. Every aspect of my life is ministry and not just when I’m working with a designated ministry.
Since arriving back in Kathmandu the Lord has really been convicting me about the attitude of my heart during certain parts of the last week. There were times when I was tired and really frustrated, so I didn’t help unload bags from on top of the bus even though I’m the tallest and it’s easiest for me to do. At times on the buses, there are specific people that I felt like God was telling me I should give my seat up for, but I sat there and made excuses for why I deserved it more than them. “I’m so tall that I have to hunch over and can’t stand up straight.” “I was on the bus first.” “They will probably be getting off soon anyway.” “If I give this seat up I may have to stand for the next 5 hours or however long we have left.” “This is their culture and they are used to being uncomfortable on buses, so as an American, I deserve to sit here more.” The list could go on unfortunately.
I’m not proud of these thoughts or the fact that I didn’t give up my seat. It was appropriate then that God used our squad leaders to really speak to me yesterday morning after we’d returned from our weeklong trip. It’s funny how he tends to do that. One of our squad leaders, Joel, started by reading from a book he’s been going through. It hit me hard! Everyone needs to hear this, so here is what he read:
Even when we have been disappointed, hurt, or wounded by a person, honor chooses to make a decision not to respond in kind. No matter what is felt coming from another person, honor chooses to not expose but speak words that give grace to the hearer. Honor views each person as a precious gift of God’s creation and grants them a position that is worthy of great respect. Honor chooses not to respond with an unwholesome word or tone.
Not to give honor is to assign dishonor. Judgment, resentment, anger, exposure, sarcasm, criticism, comparisons, favoritism, jealousy, selfishness, envy, and racism are weapons of dishonor that are used against those who are considered of little value or worth.
Have you noticed there’s no middle ground? We can be 100 percent right in our evaluation of a person’s faults or weaknesses or how they’ve disappointed us or how they have not matched up to our expectations, but love covers and does not expose others’ weaknesses or whine about them. What are we communicating when we talk to other people?
A heart of submission is a heart that honors all people. Honor begins at home. Do you honor your spouse? Do you honor your children? Or do you inflict emotional pain on them with weapons of dishonor? Do you honor the waitress at the restaurant and the checkout clerk at the grocery store? Do you honor the people who deliver your mail, pick up your garbage, or baby-sit your kids? Do you honor your coworkers, including those under your authority?
Do you honor the “little fish” who cross your path day by day? Or do you honor only the “big fish”? I never wanted my picture with a little fish. They had no value. Their picture didn’t give me bragging rights.
If we give a gift of honor to the “big fish” who have the power to promote us or give us something we want, but we do not dispense gifts of honor to the “little fish,” those we feel have no value to us, then the honor we give to the big fish is actually manipulation and control, as we try to get something we want from them In other words, if we are nice to the person buying us lunch but not nice to the one serving us lunch, then we are not a nice person, and we lack a heart of honor, humility, and sonship.”
-From Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship by Jack Frost
Did that smack you in the face like it did me? I encourage you to read 1 Peter 2:13-17. Specifically verse 17 points out that we should:
This is a difficult thing for me to do at times, especially on this journey that I’m currently on. I’m definitely in process and praying that God will continue to refine me in these areas. I encourage you to do the same and pray for God to show you areas or situations in your life where you don’t always honor those around you. With our words we are choosing to give life or death. And remember what God’s also been teaching me: As Christians, ministry is our life. There are no minutes, hours or days that we’re off. People are always watching us and waiting to experience the love of Christ through our words and actions!
