My wife spoke this week to a friend whose church is going through the devastation of another church leader who lived in deceit for a year. Whatever ups and downs, moments of hope or periods of relief he found over the past twelve months, he never got really honest with himself or another human being about the spiral of seduction he was snagged in with his confidant turned lover.
Now the spiral is a splatter of shock and embarrassment all over his family - wife and kids, his church - trusted peers and trusting people... and his own life. It's messy. It's painful. Within days his church will hear about the deception, the unraveling lies and the mask that kept the secrets covered - for a season.
None of us are beyond temptation or above vulnerability. But, I don't get it. It seems so unnecessary. God's wired us for community, for relationships where we can safely and honestly unpack the crap in our lives. God's designed us with capacity to listen with enough curiosity to really care and enough discernment to honestly hear the truth. God's created a dynamic of relationship that will strengthen us when we're weak, pick us up when we fall and challenge us to keep walking what we're talking.
But I guess we prefer a reality that shields us from the truth within us that we don't want to face. We opt for the plastic images that promise something easier than the real work in our own marriage. We opt for the pseudo acceptance of someone who knows only part of our life, while we escape from the only real opportunity we have for real grace among those who know us best.
I'm praying for our friends. For their church. For their staff. For this man. And I'm praying for our church, for our staff and for our own marriage.
Not one more. Not one more.
