ARE YOU GOING IN CIRCLES?

 

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and this week's prompt word is CIRCLE.

Yesterday, I got drawn into a heated argument with my ex-husband.   The conversation kept going in circles.   I realised that the conversation was going to keep going around in circles, circles we’ve been caught in before, multiple times, with no end in sight, so I ended it.

What do we do when something is going in circles?   Because we’re not meant to keep going around in circles.   We’re meant to be moving forward.   Always moving forward.   We’re meant to face issues, address issues, change what needs changing and move forward.     

Our journey with the Lord and with each other should always be showing some kind of growth, even if it’s incremental.  

We’re supposed to be growing – in wisdom, in understanding, in depth, in maturity and therefore in fruit.  

…….. but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.    To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.   2 Peter 3:18 

Forward movement requires growth. 

But growth requires change.   Change often comes through challenge.  Challenge comes through speaking and acknowledging truth, and sometimes just running into the reality of choices and consequences.  

Relationships are not supposed to go in circles.   Yes, some things are every day and mundane and regular and consistent.   But we should be growing and changing and developing, and being challenged to grow.  Moving from glory to glory, being transformed, going deeper with Him will always produce growth.    

…………..that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,  that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height -  to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.   Ephesians 3:16 – 19

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.  2 Cor 3:18

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.     And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”   John 8:31-32

 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.  John 15:8

Growth requires challenge.  Those challenges often come through relationships – iron sharpens iron.  

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.  Prov 27:17 

We can’t just opt out of relationships because we’re being sharpened.  That is not the answer, though it is definitely the easier route, in the short term.   We need to stay and sort it out, and let the Lord do His work in our hearts and minds.  

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.    1 Peter 4:8

From what I’ve seen in relationships that are caught in negative cycles (going around in circles), whether it’s parent/child, friendships, leader/follower, sheep/shepherd, husband/wife, is that there’s usually one person who wants it to stay the way it is and one person who’s unsettled, dissatisfied, chafing, resentful  – often because they’re growing and changing and learning, and the other person isn’t, and often doesn’t want to.  

So, if the relationship is caught in dysfunctional cycles (going around in circles), what do we do?

We need to discern if the relationship is merely difficult and can be mended, with requires work on both sides, or if it’s actually destructive.  This is a great video from two of my favourite authors/speakers (Lysa Terkeurst and Leslie Vernick), on this very sensitive and confusing subject.   

When we realise that it is destructive, we have to break the circle, break the cycle, which is incredibly confronting and painful.  Sometimes, the relationship can still be salvaged if both people are willing to recognise the unhealthy circles and do what needs doing.    And sometimes, it can’t.   I’ve written about that breaking here.   

But something I haven’t written about is a profound experience I had with the Lord in April last year, which really confirmed for me that our ‘marriage’ was in fact destructive and that getting out was the right thing to do.   I’ve had to remember it a few times when I’ve been second-guessing my decision, feeling guilty about our current reality, about his current reality, about the messiness and loneliness of it all.    One day I will write about that.  

But what I learnt from that encounter, and have had confirmed since in many ways, about health and wholeness (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) is that when we’re stuck in a loop of circles within a destructive relationship, we simply cannot get well in any of those areas.   We keep getting wounded and infected, and healing simply isn’t possible. 

We have to stop going in circles to get well, to be truly whole, to experience the shalom that He desires for us.   We simply have to stop and get out of the circle.   The problems have to be spoken out and boundaries put in place.    Boundaries break unhealthy cycles.  Lysa Terkeurst writes about it powerfully in her book, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes.  

https://www.freepik.com/premium-photo/3d-illustration-infinity-symbol-road-with-car-location-icon-it-endless-highway-design_29335624.htm

And in all of it, we lean in, hard, while He shows us the pathway forward out of those downward circles and spirals.  We ask for truth and we run to Him with the reality of those truths about us, about the relationship, about the work that needs to be done.    Then, we do the hard work, we face the pain, we feel it, we forgive it, we forge forward, with Him, and we know Him in a way that is only possible in the valley. 

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
They make it a spring;
The rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
Each one appears before God in Zion.   Ps 84:5-7

 

Truth is
Thought I was stuck in the cycle of pain
Over and over reliving the misery
And truth is
Thought that if I could find someone to blame
I could avoid all the secrets that hide in me

But I heard your voice
Above all the noise
Above all the fear
And thousands of lies
Were slowly untied
'Cause you made it clear

That love rescued me
Love set me free
I know what the truth is
Yeah, I know what the truth is
This soul's been claimed
By blood, by grace
I know what the truth is
I know what the truth is