This past Sunday, Pastor Cameron gave a message on loving one another as Christ loves us, and shared wisdom from the Bible for healthy communication. Because God first loved us, we in turn need to model Jesus’ behavior and love others first as well. That is a contrary notion to the “me first” society the world has become, and an impossible standard to operate in if we aren’t cultivating our relationship with God. Can any of us really give something we haven’t first been given? We are limited in our capacity to love. God is unlimited. If we run out of patience and love, we can’t really conjure up more of our own. But he is readily available to fill us up and restore us so that we are FULL. We can then love others well, with his help to sustain us. But this is not possible without spending time with God in prayer.

As I was sitting in my seat listening this past Sunday, my mind started pondering the relationships I have. I started assessing how I’m doing in that department. Am I loving first? It got me thinking that love and forgiveness are absolutely inseparable. I can’t love first if I’m unwilling to forgive. Forgiveness isn’t possible without spending time with God in prayer.

We also learned about levels of communication—with the most basic being introductory small talk, and building up to the height of communication, which is genuine, loving truth talk. Again I started considering. What are the common denominators in my relationships where real truth talk is not only possible, but normal and routine? The common denominators were love, trust, forgiveness, and a history of spending time together in prayer.

When is it the time to have the hard talks? The time is when you’ve spent a good amount of time in prayer and the Lord has given you peace to proceed. However! Be sure you’ve addressed your “planks.”

Luke 6:42 says, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.’”

I think the Lord is giving us the okay to talk about the specks with one another, but the burden of plank removal falls squarely on me, with the help of Holy Spirit. Be open to receive input from your trusted loved ones. If you find yourself being challenged with a speck and you recoil or instantly get angry, you probably have a plank. Time to go to God and deal with it, and then you can revisit the specks with your friends. But again, don’t go speck hunting if you haven’t spent time with God in prayer!