Relational Exhaustion

"Our family knows us well. They know our dark side. They know our failures. Teresa's family knew she was sarcastic. They knew she had a biting sense of humor. But they had grown used to it. As it had developed over the years, they learned to tune it out. They had come to anticipate her comments. It's not that her mother really liked that side of Teresa, but she had grown numb to it. In fact, she often didn't even notice her daughter's occasional tirades." -Simple Small Groups

It is challenging for us all to be everlastingly direct with one another in love. We may be afraid of conflicts. Or we may feel exhausted from many conflicts in the past. Thus we may become numb to those problems that we forgot that God has called all of us to love one another even though those conflicts. Jesus told Peter that he has to feed the sheep if he loved Jesus. Peter didn't understand at the time. But Jesus knew. Jesus encouraged Peter through his questions, he conflicted Peter. "Do you love me?" That was so direct! Peter was offended, but he grew from it! Jesus then told Peter, "Feed my sheep". He also redefined Peter's definition of love.

What about our discipleship?

Are we being direct with our disciples? Do we ask them some difficult questions or conflict them when no one would do it?
-"Hey, that joke had worn us all out. Let's have a real chat."
-"How about trying to find a solution to your complaints?"
-"Hey please email me next time."
-"You may need to get out of the shell first."

They need our feedbacks to improve their social skills. We would be abandoning our call to disciple those people or be discipled by them if we don't help one another to mature. We need to be able to create a stronger bond within the circle by setting some boundaries and some depth.

Jesus didn't leave Peter alone with the surfaced definition of love.

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