Transcription
All right, let's jump in. We are in, uh, a relationship series right now called "Ride or Die," where we're looking at, uh, the relationships that are the most important ones in your life. Now, admittedly, this is, uh, pretty heavily focused on a marriage relationship or, or a dating relationship. So, if you're single, you might feel left out, but I do want you to know that, like, the principles at play here work for any relationship. So, that's why I'm calling them the most important relationships. Whatever those are for you, these principles should work. So, I hope you don't feel left out. And if you're single and you hope to not be single one day, this is important. Uh, put it in your back pocket. You're going to, you're going to need it.
All right. Have you ever been given a compliment, but it was actually an insult? You've ever done that? I have the ability to turn any compliment into an insult. My wife is even better than I am at it. You know, tell her her hair looks nice today. It didn't look nice yesterday. Stuff like that. You know, it's great. It's fun. It's a fun time. Uh, but sometimes, and that's an accident, sometimes people kind of do it on purpose. It's a compliment, but it's just a thin veil over an insult. Uh, so here, here's a couple of them. Has anybody ever said to you, "You clean up nice"? Have you ever said that? Cuz that's like, "Okay, thanks." Kind of. You know, I get this said to me every wedding and every funeral I ever do because I only own one suit. It's my Mariam and Barryium suit. And I only wear it during those times. And every single one I do, somebody says this to me. "You clean up nice." And I know what you're, you're saying I look nice and that's nice, but, but what you're also saying is, most of the time you look a little frumpy and today you look nice. Thanks. Kind of, sort of.
What about this one? Have, have you ever seen someone, hopefully not you, someone else, post on, like, social media? They post like a picture and then somebody in the comments says, "Man, I wish I had your confidence." Complimenting your confidence, but insulting whatever it is you posted. For sure. Uh, how about this one? Again, hopefully this was never you. Uh, maybe somebody trying to explain why they don't want to go on a second date and they say something along the lines of, "You've got a really great personality." They just called you ugly. I don't know if you caught that. Uh, that's, that's a rough one. Uh, one from the South. So, down in the South, they have a general use, uh, compliment that's actually an insult. I don't know if you've ever heard this before. Uh, "Bless your heart." They just say, "Bless your heart." And if you don't, if you're not familiar and somebody says it, you might be like, "Oh, thank you so much. That's such a nice thing." But what they're actually saying is, "You're dumb and you don't know it." That's what they're saying. Uh, I think we should bring that to the North. I actually kind of like that.
Um, and then what about this one? About this one. Uh, have you ever given someone a gift and they say back to you, "It's the thought that counts"? You read that one. That's, you know, it is. They're complimenting your, the fact that you thought about them, but it's actually telling you that you gave them a terrible gift. And this is the one I want to, I want to talk about today. It's the thought that counts. You know, when a kid makes a crappy piece of pottery for their mom on Mother's Day and the mom gets it, it is the thought that counts, right? Or if anybody's ever, like, made you a meal and they accidentally burnt it or put too much garlic in it, it's the thought that counts. Or maybe they bought you a shirt and it was the wrong size. It's the thought that, as long as it's, if it's too small, that's a compliment. If it's too big, that might be an insult. I'm not sure. You have to figure that out on your own. Um, but there's certainly places where, yes, certainly the thought, uh, is what counts. But what are we saying with that phrase? And how far are we going to take that phrase? Is what was intended more important than what actually happened? Is that true? Is, is, like, are we, are we saying that what we meant to do is more important than what we actually did? That, that if our heart is in the right place, it's okay if our actions aren't? Is that what we're actually saying? Because we talk about a Mother's Day present or somebody cooking you a meal. Sure. Certainly. But how far does that go? How much do our intentions actually matter? Specifically, when it comes to your relationship with the most important people in your life, how much do your intentions matter? How much weight do your intentions carry? They matter. I, I, I think we all say that your intentions matter, but how much? And then what role do your intentions play in your most important relationships with your spouse, with your boyfriend, girlfriend, your fiance, your family, your friends, those people? What role do your intentions play? Because this idea, "It's the thought that counts," it's true of some things, but I want to say it's not true of everything. And what, what I want to propose is that if we take this idea too far, that my intentions are more important than my actions, if we take it too far, it can be really dangerous for your relationships. Really dangerous for your relationships.
For example, uh, I have this weird irrational fear in my kitchen. So, we have a decent-sized kitchen. I think it's okay. It's got a nice little island in the middle. It's decent size, but we have six people in our family. So, the kitchen, like, shrinks real quick. I think the moment three people are in the kitchen, it's too many people, and there's always somebody standing in the way of the thing that you need. I don't know if you've experienced that. They're always in front of the drawer or the cabinet that you actually need. It's always my teenage daughter, and she's always standing there not doing anything, just staring at her phone right in the middle, you know, stuff like that. But, and there's always movement. So, they're always there, um, kids running in and out, getting something to drink, getting something out of the pantry to, to get food, and, and it's fast-moving. We're always, like, bumping into each other and stuff. So, I have this fear that I'm going to be in a hurry one day and I'm going to go over to the silverware drawer, get a sharp knife out, turn around and stab my wife. This is my fear, cuz she's always moving fast, too. So, let's just, let's just say I did that. This is hypothetical. That I stab my wife. Um, it would be, if I, if this happened and I, boom, and, and it's, it's, it's just a flesh wound, she's going to be all right. In our fantasy here. It's not a fantasy. It's a dread. Oh, I'm so happy she's not here. Don't watch this later, Lisa. A nightmare is what I meant. A nightmare stabbing her. So, if that would happen, uh, it will be eventually important for her to know my intentions, right? She's going to want to know that I didn't do that on purpose, right? She's going to need to know that that was an accident, that I did not intend to stab her, right? She's going to need, you're going to want to know that, right? You're going to want to know that, like, during the week, your pastor isn't Michael Myers. Like, you're going to want to know these kinds of things, right? These are my intentions will be important. But in that moment, if I turn around and, oops, if I say, "Hey, that was an accident." She's not going to stop bleeding, is she? She's still going to be hurt. We still probably have to go to the hospital. She's still probably going to get stitches. She's still probably going to get a tetanus shot, right? Like, all that's still going to be true. Even if I didn't intend to do it, she still has hurt. She still has to heal. That's still true.
So, what I, what I need you to see here is that it's really dangerous for, for us to separate out our intentions from our actions. Really dangerous. Now, there's going to be accidents. Stuff like that could happen in your life. But it's really dangerous for us to constantly be talking only about our intentions and not about what we actually did. And again, I'm not saying your intentions don't matter. They would matter in that situation, right? I'd either be going to jail or not, right? Like, all of that would matter. But that your intentions aren't the only thing that matters. There are still consequences for your actions, whether you intended to do the thing or not. And I think we need to stop pretending like our intentions are the only thing that matters.
Now, the Bible talks about this. Uh, book of James, uh, he, he specifically mentions this in chapter 2, starting verse 15. He says this: "Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say, 'Goodbye, have a good day, stay warm and eat well.' But then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?" So, James is like, "Hey, out in your life, you see somebody who's cold, you see somebody who's hungry, and you're like, 'Hey, be warm, be filled, like, have, have a good day.'" And you don't do anything. He asks the question, "What good does that do?" And he doesn't have to answer it. He knows we'll answer it. It's none. It doesn't do any good. If you intend for the person to be warm and filled, but you don't actually do anything about it, he's like, "It doesn't do anything." Your intention does nothing for their reality. Nothing at all. And that's a really important thing for us to remember.
Now, uh, James wants to apply this in a specific way. Uh, and I want to, I want to dig into that. So, we're going to take a little bit of a side note off of relationships just for a minute because I want to see how James applies this idea and then we'll circle back to how it applies to your relationships. So, in verse 17, this is how he applies that little story. He says this: "So you see, faith by itself isn't enough unless it produces good deeds. It is dead and useless." Now, some may argue, "Some people have faith, others have good deeds." But I say, "How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds." So, James takes this little idea that your intention actually doesn't change, if, if your action doesn't do anything, your intention doesn't change anything. And he applies it to your faith. So, if you're a Christian, he's talking to you right now, and he's saying, "Hey, faith that's real on the inside is actually going to have an effect on the outside." That a faith, if, if you're a Christian, you, you have faith, but he's saying, "Hey, your faith that that changes your eternal life is also going to change your current life." And he's, he's really wanting us to see that. He's leaning into that. That if you have something real on the inside, there's going to be evidence on the outside. And we need to know that.
Now, this is one of the parts of Christianity that, that Christians like to get twisted because you read that verse and then you're like, "Okay, well, I better act right then. I better start doing some stuff because that's really important." But let me read some other verses. And we got to put these two things together to see the whole truth. And admittedly, I think when some people read these verses together, they're like, "These seem to be contradictory." But I want to look at them closely and see that they aren't. Uh, it's, it's, uh, what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9. He says this: "God saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can't take credit for it. It is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for good things we have done. So none of us can boast about it." So, on the surface, these two verses, you know, James is like, "Faith without works is dead." And Paul's like, "Hey, it's by faith. It's by grace through faith that you're saved, not by works." When you look at these two on the surface, some people go, "Ooh, are they like contradicting each other?" But I want to tell you, so here's how I, I see it. Paul is telling us, hey, your relationship with God is based on what Jesus did for you and your faith in that. God's grace. You didn't deserve it. You put your faith in Jesus. You have a relationship with God now. You're, you're, you're forgiven. Faith, faith, faith, faith. It's, you're not earning your relationship with God. You're not, you can't, you can't, you can't climb that ladder. It's too high. So Jesus climbed down to you. You can't earn your relationship with God. It's based on faith. And that's true. And then James comes along and he says, "Hey, you know that faith that Paul is talking about, if it's real, then it's going to have an effect in your life." He's not saying, "Well, you better do good stuff so that you can get to heaven." No, he's saying, "Hey, if you have the faith that Paul's talking about, it's going to have an effect on the outside. You can't just hold it in. You can't say, 'Well, I believe this, but it has zero effect on my life whatsoever.'" James would be like, "Do you really believe it, though? Do you really?" So, he's kind of talking about like a test of authentic faith is whether or not it's having an effect in your life.
Now, here's the other place where Christians get this twisted. We like to use these verses to talk about other people, right? I like to, "All right, well, James says, 'Faith without works is dead,' and you don't have any works, so you must not have faith." And that's what Christians do. "You're not a real Christian. You, you know, look at that person. Look what they're doing. Or look how they are." And, and we use it and we talk about other people. But that wasn't James' intent. James wanted you to use these verses to look at yourself and say, "Hey, what's my life look like? If I haven't changed in 10 years, but I say I have faith. I haven't grown one bit. I don't have any more of the fruit of the Spirit. I, I don't, I don't follow Jesus any more closer than I did 10 years ago, but I totally have faith." James would go, "Hey, you should look at that. You should examine that." And, and the big, the big weight of all of this is not, "Hey, you better do good to get into heaven." The big weight of this is, "Hey, make sure your faith is in the right place because when your faith is in the right place, it will produce this stuff." Does that make sense? So, James' big message is, "Don't you dare separate what's happening in here from what's happening out here." And that's huge. We need to, again, you can apply that to faith, and you can apply that to a bunch of different places.
So, I hope you know that if you're sitting here and maybe you haven't crossed the line of faith yet. I always want to put in front of you, hey, a relationship with God is based off of faith in Jesus. It is God's grace that saves you, not your good works. You, you can't be good enough. Jesus was good enough. It's your relationship with him that saves you. And then once that happens, God, God loves you right where you are. And then he starts to change you and move you. And he loves you way too much to leave you there. And you do begin to change. And we all change at different paces. Nobody, nobody grows at the same rate, the same levels. We're all going to grow in the way that God's, uh, leading us and to the level of our obedience.
So, let's, let's take this idea that James is proposing. And by the way, you could read the whole book of James and you could argue that the whole book of James, he's trying to encourage you, "Don't separate what you say is happening in here from what you're living out here." And he applies it to all different kinds of areas: your prayer life, the way you talk to other people, how you treat other people. He, he, he's always pushing, "Don't separate this from the way you live." So, let's take that and let's talk about your relationships.
So, I have a premise here. Uh, here's one premise. Your relationship is going to end up somewhere. Your relationship is going to end up somewhere. There's a, there's a destination where your relationship with the people you love the most is, is going. There's a destination. And, uh, well, let's just specifically apply this to your spouse or your fiance. Um, one possible destination is you're in your 80s, sitting on a front porch swing, watching the sunrise, drinking a cup of coffee, holding wrinkly hands together. That would be one destination, right? Uh, that's, that's goals right there. You want that, I would say. Um, another possible destination is that you're, you stay together, but you don't have that, like, you, uh, you still love each other, but maybe you don't like each other that much. You got a little cold in the house. You might not be sitting next to each other on the swing. Still, you're still together, but maybe on opposite sides of the, of the porch. Another one that's even maybe worse than that is I've seen people who stay together, but they are way past not liking each other. They maybe despise each other a little bit. For whatever reason, they just never separated. So, they're in a house that's a little hostile, and, uh, they don't even sit on the one's on the porch and one's on the back deck. They're not even in the same place. And then some of you know this intimately, that, that a relationship can end in separation. It can end in divorce. And, and if you've been divorced, you know that's, that's not a desirable outcome. You know how much that hurt. You wouldn't recommend it to anybody. That's an awful experience. So, you, your relationship is going to end up somewhere, somewhere in the future. Your relationship is going to end up there. That's my first premise. Question is, how you going to get there? How you going to get there? Because obviously the goal, I want to say, I'm going to assume about you that if you're with somebody, the goal is the, the wrinkly handholding. I know, I like, that doesn't sound super appealing, but it is. This is what you want. It's what you want. I promise this is what you want. So, how you going to get there?
So, here's my second premise. You can't intend your way to the relationship that you want. You can't intend your way there. Your intentions will not get you to where you want to go. They will not. Have you ever heard the phrase, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? You ever heard that phrase? I want to tweak it a little bit for our purposes in this series. "The road to relational hell is paved with good intentions." The road to relational hell is paved with good intentions. And here's what I mean by that. I've officiated probably close to like a hundred weddings at this point. And never, I never in any of the weddings have I officiated has the, the, the groom been standing here and the bride been standing here and the groom been standing there intending, thinking in his heart, "Man, I can't wait for this relationship to grow cold and stagnant. I can't wait to not talk to you at all." Like, no. You know, never has, never has the bride been standing there going, "Man, I can't wait to cheat on you. It's going to be so horrible, right?" And that, that never has it been, "I'm going to lawyer up so hard." Like, you know what I'm saying? That looking forward to a nasty custody battle. Like, nobody, nobody standing on their wedding day intends to end up there. But many do. Many do. And you, that, that's the thing I need you to see that your intentions actually don't take you to a destination. They don't. They don't, because nobody intends to end up in this bad place, but many do.
And here's one of the reasons. So, they do these studies on people and like how they accomplish goals. And, uh, specifically some of them, they, they look at the difference between a person who has a goal and like shares it with a bunch of people, like puts it on social media, "I'm going to do this," compared to a person who has a goal but doesn't tell anybody at all. They just keep it to themselves. And they, they look at the two and they say, "Who, who actually accomplishes the goal more often? The person who tells people or the person who doesn't?" Now, for me, when I hear that premise, I assume that the person who tells people would probably accomplish it more often. The reason I assume that is because if, if I told you I wanted to accomplish something, well, this is maybe a horrible reason, but like my pride would kick in and I'd want you to see me succeed. I wouldn't want you to see me fail. I'd be worried about what you think about me. So, it would be an extra motivation for me to accomplish the thing that I'm saying I'm going to accomplish. It would be like a pride thing. So, I'm assuming that these people over here who tell people about their goals are going to be more likely to accomplish their goals. But that's not what they found. They actually found that the people who put it out there accomplish their goals less than the people who don't tell anybody.
Now, the fascinating part and the important part for us is why. And what they discovered was that announcing the goal gives a false sense of accomplishing the goal. That when people publicly declare their intentions, the brain releases the same kind of dopamine, the same little hit that that it would in actually accomplishing the goal. So, so the brain, what, what they discovered is the brain doesn't know the difference between you saying you have a goal and you actually accomplishing the goal. Your brain's like, "Did it." Your brain, in this little checklist in the brain's like, "Check. You said you were going to do it. You intended to do it." Brain's like, "You did it." So, these people lose motivation because their brain's like, "You did that already." Even though they didn't. That's so dangerous because the brain then is thinking you're going in a direction when all you're doing is intending to go in a direction. And you get a false sense of security from that. Your brain's like, "Well, that's what you intended, so that's what you're doing, even though you're not doing it." And I see, I see this play out in relationships all the time. Your intention is to go one direction, but, but your direction, what you're actually doing, your day-in-day-out practices are taking you the other way.
Think about this. Think about all the different aspects of a relationship. I intend for us to be really good at communicating. Ah, I, I want that. I, I desire that. My intention is that we're going to be really good at communicating. But you, you're never vulnerable. You're always defensive. You keep your thoughts and your feelings to yourself. You expect your spouse to read your mind. So, your direction is going this way. When your intention, your intention's over there, but every step you take is going in the opposite direction. Your intention isn't going to get you there. It's your direction that's going to get you to a destination.
I intend for us to be present and to spend quality time together. That's what I want. That's my intention. But I stare at my phone constantly, and I let the kids invade every single aspect of our lives. I overschedule our calendar. We never have dinner together as a family. We never go on date nights. We never have a real, uninterrupted adult conversation. All of the direction is going this way, even though the intention is back that way. Intention is not going to get you there.
I intend for us to be on the same page parenting. We want to be on the same page parenting. We want to be a united front to fight these kids. That's what you need. But you never sit down and actually talk about it. You never talk about how you were parented versus how your spouse was parented and how they're different. And you need to compare how that worked and how you turned out and the dysfunctional aspects of both of them. And you need to look at what the Bible says. How should you parent? The Bible has a lot to say about that. But you don't ever do any of that. So then, in the heat of battle, you undermine each other. You're trying, one's trying, one's matter than the other one, so the other one undermines this one. And then the next time it's traversed, and you're always undermining each other, and you're never on the same page. You intend for one thing, but your direction is in the opposite. And you're going to end up here, not where you intend.
Should I keep going? We intend to have a great sex life. So, so we intend, but I never initiate. I always have an excuse. Always have a headache. Got quiet. I had somebody come up to me after first service and be like, "The nursery is so full. We don't have that problem here." Maybe that's a little bit of a point. That's our church growth strategy, by the way.
Um, one more. I intend for us to have a really deep, meaningful spiritual life. I intend for us to have a close relationship with God. But we don't prioritize anything spiritual. We don't, we don't do any practices that would lead in that direction. And read our Bible, pray, have any kind of spiritual conversations, any excuse to miss church, we're out. All of the direction is one way, even though the intention is over there. And what I want you to see is that your intention isn't getting you anywhere.
So, here's, here's the phrase I want you to remember. It's direction, not intention, that will lead to a destination. It's, it's the day-in-day-out little decisions, not what you're intending, not what you're desiring, not what you're saying you want. It's not getting you anywhere. It's your direction. But the real, again, the problem is your brain is tricking you because you have that intention, and your brain's like, "That's good. You're doing great. You're doing a great job." Even though going in the opposite direction, you're doing a great job. Your brain is telling you you're fine, even though your direction is the opposite of what you actually want. It's incredibly dangerous. Your intentions aren't going to get you anywhere. And again, I'm not saying your intentions aren't important. I'm not bashing intentions. Intentions are important. I want you to have good intentions. But they're not moving you towards your desired relational destination. And this is what I'm worried about in some of the relationships that I interact with. I'm worried that, that I hear a whole lot of intention talk. This is what we want. This is what we intend. This is what we mean. But what I usually see is a direction that isn't going in that way. It's not going to end up there at all. See, because the path you're on doesn't care what your intention is. It's going to end where it ends. It's going to, it's going to end here whether you intend to be somewhere else or not. But think about that. You could be, if you wanted to go to Florida and you jumped on I-77 North. The road don't care that you wanted to go to Florida. It's going to take you to Lake Erie, which is not Florida at all. It doesn't matter what you intend. What matters is your direction.
And it's even worse than that. It's even worse than that. And I bet some of you can attest to this. If you're in a relationship with a person who talks about their intention a lot, that going in one direction, but their actions actually go the opposite way. If you're in a relationship like that, um, the, the size of your frustration is the distance between what they say they intend and what they actually do. Don't say amen because that'd be awkward. But, and, and you can, you can attest that you've been in a relationship where somebody talks about, "This is what I intend, this is what I want, this is what I mean," but, "This is what I'm actually doing." And your frustration is about that big. And it's even worse when it, when that lasts a while. When there's, when there's a longer extended period of time where the intention is stated to be one way and the action is the opposite, and the frustration grows and grows and grows. But here's the thing. If you're the person doing that, you don't realize you're doing it because your brain is telling you that the intention is the same as doing it. Your brain can't tell the difference. Your brain is like, "You're good. You intend to do it. You did it." So, you feel better than you should. You know how, um, you know in in movies they can play music to kind of let you know what's going to happen? There's like a feel to the music behind what's happening so you know this is a good scene, this is a bad scene. So, so in, in this case, um, your brain's like playing the wrong music. Like your intentions, it's like the music, if you've ever watched Lord of the Rings, like the, the Shire music, you know, that like happy, pluckucky, like this is all great. No works, you're going to attack. Great, great music. Your intentions are great. But what you should be playing, what your, what your spouse is hearing is that's what you, you should be hearing, but your brain is playing a different note. And that's why it's so dangerous for you to separate out your intentions from your actions because your brain is playing the wrong music and your relationship's way worse than you think it is. And I'm sure the person who's experiencing that thinks that if you would just be honest about what's actually happening instead of constantly talking about what you intended to happen, maybe we could actually make some progress.
So, I want to talk about how this plays out in, I'll call it two ways, in the positive and the negative. In the hurtful and in the hopeful. So, here's the first way this is going to play out where your intentions play out, um, in the hurtful places. Did you know that you're going to hurt the person you love the most? Did you know that? It's really weird, actually, to think about that the people we love the most are also the ones we hurt the most. It's really weird, but this is just how it plays out all the time. And, and if you're in a really rough place relationally, you could be walking down the street and like, some random guy, "Hey, how you doing?" "Hey, great." You know, and like, but your wife of seven years won't look at you. Isn't that weird? Like, a random guy on the street. I actually have a pretty good relationship with that guy. Less than five seconds, but it was good. But your wife, you guys can't even talk. And we, we have this dissonance happening of the people we love the most, we're hurting the most. And the reason is because the people we love the most get to experience all of us, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, in your relationship, you're going to say something. You're going to do something that hurts your spouse. You're going to, it's going to happen. And I'm going to make an assumption. I'm going to make an assumption that you didn't do it on purpose. That's my assumption. That's not going to be theirs, but it's mine. Okay? You didn't mean to. It was an accident. Um, but your, your intentions went one way and the direction was the opposite.
So, here's the question. How do you handle that? How do you handle when you hurt your spouse where, either by something you say or something you did, you hurt them, but you didn't mean to? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? I can tell you what your instinct's going to be. Your knee-jerk reaction when you hurt your spouse and you didn't mean to is you want to say, "It was an accident. I, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that." That's what you want to say first. The reason I know that's your instinct is because that's my instinct. And the other reason I know it is because I have kids, and my kids, you know, they, they have, they're, they're young, so they're still developing, like, relational skills. So, you kind of get just get to see raw human interactions when you have a bunch of kids. And I have four. So, I get to see a lot of raw human interactions. And, and I have this, a couple of phrases that get said in my house, and it's not the phrases themselves, it's, it's the way the phrases are said that I hear. Um, it's with the most anger and vitriol and just venom, uh, that I'll hear. I'll be like, in a complete, like, on a different floor of the house, and I'll hear, "It was an accident! I didn't mean to!" And it's like they are, it's, you see like fire coming out of their mouth with these phrases. And what's crazy is, is one kid has hurt another kid, but they didn't mean to. And they are mad at the other kid for being hurt, even just, and the only reason they're mad is 'cause they didn't mean to hurt them. "How dare they have a bruise from something that I did when I didn't even mean to do it? How dare her be bleeding right now? I didn't mean to stab her, right?" Kids are, kids are crazy, right? Kids, man. Right. But do we, do we do a little bit of this? Do you ever get mad at somebody for reacting to something because you didn't intend for it the way they took it? You get mad at them. And I think that's our instinct, right? Because we see our heart. We see our intentions. So, when they react the wrong way, we're like, "What's wrong with you? I didn't mean that." And then they have every right to be mad because we just hurt them. We just stabbed them, but now we're mad at them for bleeding. And that's not the play.
So, can I give you the play? Let me give you a play. If you hurt the person you love the most, even though you didn't intend to, here's what you do. It's four steps. And order is very important. You cannot take these out of order. You have to do them in the right order. Okay. Step one, if you hurt somebody and you didn't mean to, you acknowledge the hurt first. "I stabbed you and you're bleeding. That happened. And the reason that's important is because you want to establish reality. That's the first step. This happened. I did this. This happened to you. You have to establish reality. You can't, you can't do, you can't question that. They got a term for that now, right? It's called gaslighting. You're like, making reality different than it really is. No. Establish reality. I hurt you. It was me. Now you're, now you're hurt." Second step is you take responsibility for the hurt and you apologize. "I hurt you. You know, I did a thing. It hurt on me. Will you forgive me? Will you forgive me?" Those first two steps, you take those steps and you got to let that breathe for a minute. You got to let the relationship absorb that. You got to let the person absorb that. "I hurt you. Will you forgive me?" Let that sit for a minute. See how they respond. And then step three. "Hey, just so you know, that wasn't what I intended. I know it hurt. I know you're bleeding. We might have to go to the hospital, but that's not what I, I didn't mean to do it. Just so you know, that wasn't, that wasn't my intention." That's the third step. And it is important for them to know your intention, but that's not the first step. That's the third step. The first two are really important. You got to get the first two before you do the third one. And then here's the fourth step. You got to learn from that because the thing I see time and time again is in a relationship, um, somebody say, let's just use words as an example. Somebody communicating in a way that hurts the other person, but they, they die on the hill. "That's not what I meant. That's not what I intended." But it keeps happening over and over and over again. "Your words hurt." "That's not what I meant." "Your words hurt." "That's not what I meant." And what I want to tell you is if you're in that place, you're the one who has to figure this out. You can't put it on them to stop being hurt by the way you're communicating. You have to change the way you're communicating. You don't have to. You can keep doing it. But I promise you, they're, here's an example. Some of you grew up in yelling houses. You know, you know, if you know, you know, right? And you, you like, you will say a sentence. This is hilarious. Cuz here's what you'll do. You'll go, "I'm not yelling." Yeah, you are. But maybe not for your home of origin. Maybe that's normal. Maybe that's just talking. But for the person you married, they're like, "We didn't come from a yelling house. That's, this is yelling. This is yelling." And they, they don't even know what to do with that. What I'm saying is you got to learn this. This is on you. If you're doing the damage, you got to be the one to, to make some changes here. And I'm not saying they need to stay ignorant to the fact that you grew up a different way from them. But if you're doing the damage, you got to learn. Don't you dare. Cuz what? Here's what we do. We use intention like a shield. We get the shield out. And when they say, "That hurt," you go, "Didn't mean to. Didn't mean to. That was, that was, that was an accident. I, I didn't intend that." And, and here's the crazy part. Nobody can. It's kind of, uh, the perfect defense, right? That's the trump card you lay down. "Didn't mean to." They can't say. They can't. They don't know. They can't see inside your heart. They can't see inside your head. They have to take you at your word for it. And you use it as a shield. But what it's really doing, if you use intention as a shield, what it's really doing is just pushing you further and further apart. And what you're really saying, what you're really saying is that your heart is more important than their hurt. That the fact that you didn't mean to stab them is more important than the fact that they're bleeding. That's what you're really saying. And, and ultimately, you're putting your innocence above the health of the relationship. And you're going to kill it. You're going to kill it. And I don't want that for you. So, acknowledge the hurt. Take responsibility. Apologize. Clarify your intentions. And then learn. Learn from this. Have a better interaction. Do not keep doing the same thing over and over again and then just saying, "I didn't mean to." Don't do it. You're going to kill your relationship.
All right. So, that's when it comes to hurtful things. That's your play. Four parts. Order is very important. What about hopeful things? What about, um, you know, you have intentions for what you want your relationship to look like? You got these dreams and these hopes. This is what we want. This is what we want for our relationship. These hopeful, hopeful things. How can we get there? Because you have, you have intention, but your direction might be going a different way.
So, here's the first thing I would suggest when it comes to, hey, you've got, you have dreams, you have hopes, you have intentions for your relationship. I want to suggest that you take some time with the person you love the most and you have an extended conversation with them about the difference between your intention and your direction. I want you to have a conversation about that. Got to be extended. Got to have a babysitter. Them kids, man, they'll come in right when you're about to get somewhere. Somebody hurt, somebody did something, somebody took a toy, and your conversation is derailed at best. Get a babysitter. Get away. Get a notebook. Do an inventory on your life. This is our intention. This is our direction. And you got to do the whole thing. In our communication, this is how we want to communicate. This is how we're actually communicating. In our sex life, this is the sex life we want. This is the one we have. In our finances, this is what we want them to look like, but this is what it actually looks like. Parenting, calendar, your friendship, your spiritual life. Do an inventory of your relationship. This is what we intend and this is the direction we're headed.
Now, it's going to be a little different because some of you have done this. You've done, maybe you do it regularly, but this, what I'm suggesting is a little different than what normally happens because normally the conversation is about, "How are we doing?" You're talking about the present, and that's good. Better than not having a conversation at all. But what I'm suggesting is not just a "How are we doing?" What I'm suggesting is, "What direction are we heading?" And this is a little bit harder because you have to ask questions like, um, "If every day was like this day, where would we end up? If every week was like this week, where would we end up? If every month was like this month, where would we end up?" I don't want you just figuring out where you are. You need to make the connection between the small choices and interactions you have and the destination that it leads to. And it's a little bit speculative. You don't know. So, you're going to have to have a good conversation about this. We have to sit down and be like, "Hey, what do you think happens if we keep doing this? If our conversations were like the ones we had today, where will we end up? If we keep doing money this way, where will we end up? If we keep parenting this way, where will we end up?" You have to ask that question. What, what is the destination of the direction that we're headed? It's not going to be a super fun conversation. Well, some of it might be. And you might fight about some of it. You might disagree. "Well, I don't know if that's really the destination. If we keep doing that, I'm not sure that's where we're going to end up." You need to have it out. You need to talk about it. But you also need to listen because remember, your brain is tricking you. You think you're doing better than you are because your brain is counting your intention as if it's direction. So, you need to listen to your spouse when they say, "Hey, your brain's lying to you. You think you're doing better than you really are." And by the way, that hurts. I hate hearing I'm doing worse than I thought I was doing. But man, I want to, I want to suggest that you enter that conversation and you, you care more about the health of the relationship than being right and have it.
Now, let's say, let's say maybe you have a couple of those. Maybe you get stuck on a, on one subject and you have to work through it. Maybe you have another one. Let's just say you have a couple conversations. And let's say hypothetically you live through them. Let's just say here's what's going to happen. You're going to have that conversation. Maybe you'll even be on the same page. You'll, you'll cry. You'll hug. It'll be great. The very next week, your spouse is going to fail. You're, you're going to have talked about it. You're going to talk about, "Here's our intention, here's our direction, this is what we want to do." They're going to take a couple of steps in the right direction. And then they're going to take a giant one backwards. And you have to make a choice right then and there because your instinct is going to be to explode. "We just talked about this. You know how much that hurts. You know what that means about where we're going to end up." And you could just lose it on them. And you would want to. It would feel good in the moment. But I just want to suggest to you that there is a 0% chance that your spouse is going to do everything perfect after that conversation. That you're going to fail. They're, they're not going to just walk perfectly towards their intention. They're going to take a bunch of steps and then they might take one or two back. And if you explode on them, here's what I've seen. If you explode on them when they fail, it doesn't cause them to go further this way. Usually what happens is it rebounds worse and they keep going backwards.
So, can I show you a, I, I think absolutely vital couple of verses for this? Ephesians 4:2-3. "Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace." Humble. When they screw up, can you be humble? When they screw up, can you be gentle? How about this? Let's not be surprised when they fail. How about in the conversation when you talk about, "Hey, our intention is this, but our direction is this. We need to go in this direction." What if you, in that conversation, have have a part of it be, "Here's what we're going to do when we mess up. Here's what we're going to do." Let's plan that they're not going to bat a thousand. Let's not hold our breath hoping they're going to be perfect. Let's have a plan. "Hey, we want to go in this direction. Oops, you failed. Here's what we're going to do." Plan it ahead of time before you're mad, before the heat goes all the way up, and have the plan be something along the lines of being humble and gentle, patient, making allowance for their faults, remembering that you're fighting for the relationship. You're not fighting against them. You're fighting with them for the relationship. You got to have grace with each other. Because here's what I want to suggest. Stumbling progress is better than no progress. Two steps forward, three steps back, two steps forward is better than nothing. And I know it's scary because you think, you think it wasn't just a setback. You think they turned around and they're heading in this direction again. But you have to give them grace to fail, or you're never going to make it. You're never going to make it. It's direction, not intention, that leads to destination.
Pray with me. Lord, I thank you for your love for us because it is, it is the blueprint for how this is supposed to work. That you love us even when we stumble. And I pray for that in this room. Lord, I pray for the relationships in this room where intention and action are far apart, where there's a lot of frustration. I pray that they would have those conversations. And I pray for the conversation, Lord. I pray that you would be present in that. That there would be, they would work through some tough things, but that there would be love there and patience there and humility there. I pray for the person right now who's been using intention as a shield. I pray that they would put it down. Put it down. That they would acknowledge and apologize, be humble and gentle. And Lord, I pray for all of the relationships represented in this room that their intention and their direction would line up. They would actually be going towards the thing that they intend, going towards that dream, that hope, that thing that you have laid on their heart for their relationship to look the way you want it to look. Give us the, the energy and the wisdom to get there. Lord, in Jesus name I pray.