Now Ion know about you so Imma talk about me, k?!
I think we can all agree that life be life’ing, don’t?! And God be God’ing™️! And the Bible? Oh honey, the bible be bible’ing! Because where’d this verse come from?!:
”Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.”“
Proverbs 26:18-19 NLT
This been in there the whole time?!
I could end this post here… But I won’t!
I just think it’s real funny how people (and for the record, I was once people!) would tell a “joke” that cut swift and sharp like a cutlass and then finish it with “I was just joking!” Or, if you’re like me and grew up inna Boston it might’ve been “I was just joshing ya!”
Now if Imma be honest, I did it because that’s what some of the adults around me were doing. I didn’t ever laugh at their “jokes”. But I did go tend to my new wounds with each word they hurled in my direction. Each word a cut. Each “joke” that wounded me.
Jokes are supposed to make you laugh, not cry! Jokes are supposed to be light hearted and funny. If a “joke” hurts your heart and your feelings, baby ruuun!
When I’d make mention in some form or fashion that those jokes were harmful and not helpful, I was told I was “too sensitive”. Too sensitive?! These people really carrying on bad!
And this is why I’ve distanced myself from them.
The Good Book really is… Well… Good! I didn’t know how to manage people in my younger years because… Well, the folly of youth. Because I did what others– the adults no less– around me were doing and as you perhaps can tell, it won’t (yes, won’t!) all good. I learned how to “manage up” once I grew up and got to corporate, but how do you manage up when the culprit is your relative? When the culprit is your friend? When you don’t think you can exit stage left?
What I know now in my adulthood is we always have a choice. And when I say always I mean it in the if “nothing is impossible with God”, then there’s always another option. 1+1=2 and guess what?! 0.5×4=2, too! There’s hardly ever– dare I say never?!– only one way to do something despite people making us feel like there isn’t. Is that… Manipulation I smell???
Listen, I’m not saying chuck the deuces to er’body, but I am saying that those you choose to repeatedly and knowingly offend you despite you clearly stating your needs, desires, and boundaries? Hear them and move accordingly. Stand tall and stand firm in your boundaries. If they choose to be as offended by your boundaries as you are by their jokes that are “just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon” then perhaps let them choose to be offended as they exit stage left.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a [wo]man, I gave up childish ways.
1 Corinthians 13:11 ESV
And therein lies the problem! Did you catch it?! I’ve read and recited that verse fifty ‘leven times and yet somehow I just feel like I caught it for the first time: Some people are full grown adults but haven’t chosen to put away childish things. They’re still cutting others down with their words instead of building them up. Watch them. Hear them. Hear their heart. Let’s rewind and read that Proverbs verse again, shall we?
Like a crazy person shooting deadly flaming arrows are those who deceive their neighbor and say, “Hey, I was only joking!”
Proverbs 26:18-19 CEB
Don’t let lies and deceit ruin you. Choose to stand tall and firm. Choose to do what you know needs to be done.
Does it feel good? Not always. Do you want to love your relatives and friends from a distance? Nope. But what else does guarding your heart look like if not protecting it from “madmen”?!
