Speak Truth Even When It Hurts

After running two small businesses for four years and now a blog, I’ve learned that working relationships with others can either bring out the best in them or the absolute worst.  It’s even more of a gamble when expectations are not set ahead of time and when words are misinterpreted through e-mail messages.

Running a business is not the walk in the park that most people think.  Yes, it provides me the opportunity to set my own hours and be my own boss, but there’s an awful lot of stress that comes along with those freedoms.

One thing that I’ve found to be the hardest about running a business is how people react to something you’ve said or done, or not said and not done. And this is especially hard as a Christian business owner.

Because I don’t hide the fact that I am a Christian while doing business, I often find myself in a position where others judge the way that I conduct business, which I like to think is done in a professional and curtious manner.  But in all honesty, I do get frustrated sometimes.  And that sometimes is often when the third email I’ve sent isn’t read fully and I find that I am repeating myself for the umpteenth time.  To that all I can say is, let’s not forget, I.am.human.

But what I don’t get is that people seem to expect Christians (myself included) to be happy all of the time.  That we are to suck it up, button our lip, smile, and act as though nothing is wrong, even when we’re having a bad day, are facing a downright crappy experience, have been met by someone with a chip on their shoulder that thinks it’s okay to throw their negativity right in our face, or find a fellow business owner selling false advertisements of their services.  

When negative experiences occur, some people feel that Christians are not entitled to share opinions of such an experience.  To that I just want to say, “So what? You want me to lie and tell you that everything is peachy keen when you’ve been nothing but rude to me?  To lie to others saying that your half-hearted efforts to provide a service to me was actually top notch? How is that being any more Christian?”

To that I say, “No!”  We’re not called to suck it up and act as though everything is peachy keen.  We’re not to sit back and let people trample all over us and our reputation, just because they feel they have the right to.

And before you start try to crucify me with your comments, hear me out.  

I know full well that we are called to turn the other cheek, yes, but what is often forgotten about that call is the passage that follows stating that we should love our enemies. 

One way I feel that we can love these people who get under our skin and cause such bitterness in our hearts is to follow through with another calling; to point out the faults of our brothers and sisters when they sin, so that they may learn from their mistakes and turn from their ways. 

And the second way that we can love is to forgive those who sin against us, not once, not seven times, but seventy-seven times; even when our hearts may feel hardened towards them.  And we should seek forgiveness for feeling any bitterness or resentment towards them as well.

These callings don’t mean that we are to judge others for their sins.  Rather we are to love them despite their sinful nature, we are to help provide them a way to turn from their sin, and to forgive them even when our heart of hearts says they don’t deserve it.

So if I feel that a working experience was a less-than-savory one, I will write a review to let others know to tread lightly.  But I will sit on the experience in order to let my “humanness” calm down and to ensure that my review will be courteous and professional.

I will not spew hatred or resentment, but speak truth to what I have found in my encounter.  It is not to make the other feel bad or rile them up, but to rather to speak truth, even if it hurts their feelings for a short time, in order to provide a way for them to clearly see where they have gone wrong and in hopes that they will consider improving the way they go about working with others.

I know that if I’ve been a jerk or acting in a manner that is not appropriate, I would hope that someone would call me out on it, so that I may be made aware, I may apologize, and I may correct my behavior so that others may not encounter that side of me again.  I would hope that others would be willing to speak truth even if it hurts me for a short time, to ensure that I don’t hurt others for an even longer time.

Do you write reviews (positive or otherwise) or do you sit on your words so not to offend?