Relational Brokenness with Alasdair Groves
On today’s episode we’re continuing our series, “Walking Alongside one Another In…” with a conversation on the topic of relational brokenness with Alasdair Groves. Alasdair serves as the Executive Director of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (otherwise known as CCEF). He also serves as a faculty member and counselor at CCEF. Alasdair holds an MDiv with a counseling emphasis from Westminster Theological Seminary. He was the co-founder of a biblical counseling center in northern New England, where he served as Executive Director for ten years. He is the author of Untangling Emotions.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Can you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?
Why do we seem so surprised by relational brokenness when we know we live in a fallen world?
What are some examples of relational brokenness that the listeners may be walking through?
How does the gospel speak to our relational brokenness?
How can we trust in Christ, who died so that our relationship with God could be restored, and ask for wisdom and the ability to forgive?
What are some practical steps for reconciliation in broken relationships?
Are there instances in which it might not be wise for our relationship to be restored?
What is the role of the church in coming alongside others who are navigating broken relationships?
How can we be confident that God is good, that he is with us, and that he will use whatever relational friction we are experiencing for our good and his glory, no matter the outcome of our relationship struggles?
How can we compassionately and lovingly encourage those whom we are walking alongside to look to him in their time of need?
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES
“Part of being a sinner is being so intuitively under the impression that your way is right and your way is good, and anyone else who does anything in a different way must be wrong.”
“When we think of relational brokenness, the first place our mind goes is to anger and conflict, but anger and conflict does not necessarily mean that there is relational brokenness. Anger can actually be an extremely good sign about the care that someone has for a relationship.”
“Anger can be wielded redemptively. Anger fundamentally is an expression of love. ‘I love someone or something and therefore my anger gets aroused around it.”
“Wherever you see anger, you see an enormous danger of relational brokenness, but I want to distinguish between anger...that is telling you that you love yourself… versus ‘I love you, and my anger is against the thing that is bad for you.’”
“Another category of relational brokenness is guilt and obligation and people pleasing. Often this won’t look like relational brokenness, but it will be relational brokenness because if you’re operating out of guilt, obligation, or people pleasing you’re fundamentally living at best in a peaceful, surface-level realm that does not actually lead to relational wholeness. It kills intimacy even if it preserves civility.”
“Then there’s the difficulty of working through restoration, forgiveness, reconciliation, repentance, grace, etc. It might not be that either of us is actively doing anything against the other person, we both might even desire to walk forward well together, but bad hurt has been done. How do we navigate that?”
“There’s also the relational brokenness of loneliness. I may be in a relationship, I may not be in a relationship, I may be in the midst of a crowd of people and a sea of acquaintances but I feel this deep isolation and loneliness in the midst of others.”
“The key is to understand: given that I’m a sinner, there are probably some things I need to repent. Given that the other person is a sinner, there are probably some things I need to forgive here.”
“We are called to restoration of relationship. There are two categories here: forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“Forgiveness is the idea of an attitude of the heart that says ‘I need to be willing to let go of whatever I hold against you. My heart toward you is willing to release you from the debt that you’ve incurred by what you’ve done to me.” Reconciliation is actually a relational process of ‘how can we take where we are and make it better, closer, more intimate, more restored, more redeemed.”
“Forgiveness is a process you can do on your own… whereas reconciliation is a two-way street.”
“At the core of what enables us to forgive us Christ forgiving us.” (see Matthew 18)
“You need to be most aware of the Lord’s forgiveness when you’re trying to deal with the big debts, the big wounds, the big harms that you’ve experienced from another person.”
“You have to be willing to say, ‘Lord the fact that I’m really hurt here is a profound opportunity to take on board once more just how deep the love of Christ is for me, how much his mercy has forgiven me. Until I am reminded that I was really hurt by this person...but that’s just a tiny window of the betrayal I have done to you, Lord’”
“Reconciliation, if it's not driven by forgiveness flowing from the gospel, if it’s not that ‘forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors’ mentality that says I have got to come to the Lord aware that I am owed nothing by him, that’s what allows me to go out towards other people and think practically about steps towards reconciliation.”
“There’s not necessarily a rule for every reconciling situation. Instead simply consider, who is this person? And what is the best way I can love them? That Ephesians 4:29, what is going to give grace, what’s going to build up, what's not going to be a corrupting word but what will be a word that seeks the benefit of the person I’m talking to? The same person will reconcile differently with different people based on the person they’re talking to and seeking to love.”
“Relational conflict is really hard, so keep it as simple as you can.”
“Even if you never see any value to the relational reconciliation in this life… there is something about placing your faith in Christ by doing something that you don’t want to do that is really hard and you know you’re called to it and you don’t see the value of it, there is an incredible type of glory in that kind of trust.”
“Reconciliation is a little window to heaven, a little window to the unity of the body that we have through Christ.”
“How can I hate that which Christ loves?”
“Relational reconciliation has got to be the most vivid visible evidence of the work of the gospel. Period. End of story. It’s the most glorious evidence that Christ has got a hold of you and is doing something in you.”
“We have to recognize that part of the church’s primary purpose in our lives is to help us with our relational brokenness - between two people in the church, between people outside the church.”
“People’s lives are messy, and it’s important that you as a helper coming in are full of hope in Christ, and in some ways you're actually providing a healthy perspective of hope to the person you’re trying to come alongside.”
“We want to have a mix of compassion and a desire to help somebody grow in a hard situation. And that’s a very difficult mix.”
“Practical steps towards engaging relational brokenness:
Be excited for the possibilities inherent in relational brokenness for you to know the Lord more.
Self-assess: who are the people who are close to me? Where are the places I would describe as relationally broken? What can you do to see that relationship get better?
Memorize Ephesians 4:29.
Craft a uniquely tailored plan for each broken relationship. This might mean giving space, keeping silence, confronting directly, or asking questions.
Have the courage to walk toward rather than away.”
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
SIMPLE JOYS
Treasuring others, and thereby investing in heavenly treasure through ministry
When the gospel sounds surprising to someone
Realizing that it’s not up to me to fix things - it is the work of the Spirit
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How does the gospel speak to our relational brokenness?
Where have you seen relational brokenness in your own life? Have you ever been prone to preserve civility at the cost of killing intimacy?
Are there any relationships in your life that God is working in, where you could take a practical next step toward reconciliation?
How can we compassionately and lovingly encourage those whom we are walking alongside to look to him in their time of need?
What are you going to do or implement as a result of what you’ve learned this week?
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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