Protecting Our Hearts From “Doom and Gloom” People

Monday, April 14, 2008

Here’s an excerpt from a chapter called “Distance” in Getting Rid of the Gorilla:

The writer of Proverbs 4:23 understood how crucial it is to guard the spiritual and emotional core of who we are. Notice the phrase “above all else.” There was no punctuation in ancient Hebrew, so to call attention to something he wanted to emphasize, a Jewish writer placed it at the beginning of the sentence. By placing “above all else” at the front of this proverb, the writer was saying, “Trust me, whatever you do in life, and I mean whatever you do, make sure you guard your heart!”

In 1997 I learned why this is important. That was the year I quit being a pastor. I didn’t make a formal announcement to my congregation, but I might as well have; I was out of there. In my mind I had one very good reason for removing my hand from the plow: a man I’ll call Jim.

He was an older gentleman who felt called by God to be my accountability partner—without asking me. One day he offered to take me out to eat, and, underprepared for what was about to happen, I accepted. Setting down his sandwich, Jim said, “Brian, there are hundreds of things you are doing wrong at our church, but for the sake of time I’ve shortened my list to ten.”

Caught completely off guard, I made the mistake of saying, “Start with number one.” Two and a half hours later, I left with 50 percent less self-esteem and a really good case for why first cousins should never marry.

After that meeting, Jim decided it was his special calling from God to point out my mistakes on a weekly basis—through letters, phone calls, notes in the offerings bowls, frowns during my sermons, and endless discussions with other church members behind my back. Jim was the first person I ever met with the spiritual gift of slander.

In his book Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck remarked, “Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others . . . who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.”

That was Jim, and I hated him for it. For an entire year, he wrecked my life—he single-handedly wrecked me emotionally.

There’s a reason Proverbs 4:23 cautions us to guard our hearts: God doesn’t expect us to keep allowing people like Jim to hurt us. God isn’t sadistic; he doesn’t expect us to keep going back for second helpings of pain. Creating distance is simply a way we guard our hearts from getting trampled on again and again.