You have heard the council, stay away from the awkward conversation such as politics, race, religion, sex, or money. How is life going to be different if we spent the next 20 years discussing nothing but the weather, sporting event, or perhaps a cooking show? What if you leaned into the uncomfortable conversations with an open mind and heart? What if you didn’t represent an entire group of people, but talked about your own experience. Each person’s experience brings a different advantage point.
A litany of emotions within a short space of time is typical as we listen to social media. Sadness, frustration for one story, hope and goodness for another, and disappointment for what a friend wrote on Facebook. We are at a point in our history where God has allowed us to address race relations. God seems to be saying here is this issue how are you going to be dealing with it. If we believe that there is no surprise to God, then he has given us this opportunity to step up into this conversation and listen from someone else advantage point.
All color races were out of God’s imagination, and yet I hear leaders say they are color blind. What if we walked together under God’s banner? We cannot turn off our color; we cannot help how people view our color; we cannot help other people’s biases. What we can do is acknowledge color, check our preference, and have conversation listening through other people’s lenses.
Jesus called his disciples to love your neighbors as yourself. The mark of my people is that they love well. As leaders, we have to commit to showing love. Love isn’t easy. How you know that you love someone is when it gets complicated and it cost you comfort. We need to commit to love from our advantage point to serve people who are a disadvantage. We need to be leaders, willing to be inconvenient, and demonstrate love.
Proverbs 31:8-9 states,” Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” As leaders, we need to look for ways to help and speak up.
We need to take our next steps to recommit to acting from a place of love.
• From a position of advantage educate yourself on issues in your area
• Identify problems that need be to change fundamentally
• Acknowledge what is wrong and apologize
• Initiate conversation…listen to a conversation with judgment.
Show love – dive into the uncomfortable conversations.