"He who dares not offend cannot be honest"

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest” - Thomas Paine

It’s been a few months since I’ve written and put my thoughts together. Diana has been pouring into our community with encouragement and challenges in her blogs and I’m very thankful for the gifts God has given her in that area. I hope they’ve been a blessing to all of you!

With moving and coming into our 10th year of 925, I’ve been reassessing my purpose at 925. Many years of coaching and interacting with our community has helped me, our team, and our community grow in a plethora of ways. I’ve been blessed watching so many people make positive changes in their lives and learning while watching some choose not to. There’s good and bad that comes with being a Coach, but even with the “bad” we learn and find out how to better serve those God has put in our lives to help.

This year, my focus is to connect directly and personally with every person I can, starting with the gym and moving out into my personal life as well. My goal is to have real conversations, speak the truth in love and grow closer with the people around me.

The last two years drove many people apart for various reasons. Politically, health opinions and perspectives, fear driven by the media (on all sides), laziness and apathy, loss of faith in many institutions and communities we normally relied on and enjoyed. Our relational landscape changed. People have become incredibly easy to offend, dissenting opinions of all kinds are disparaged, and objective truth is out of popularity.

What’s “true for you” is popular. You define your own reality. If you believe something, even if the facts and actual truth contradict your belief, you’re encouraged to hold on to that belief. There are too many topics to even begin to discuss, but I’m sure quite a few come to mind.

With this “your truth” combined with social and physical isolation and a constant drum-beat of the next crisis and media narrative, it’s easier for many to simply continue to isolate, avoid those who hold different opinions or beliefs, and coddle and protect our seemingly fragile minds from anything that might challenge our thinking.

One of my favorite things about the gym is that it is a melting pot of people from all backgrounds, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives. Something about hard workouts and doing them alongside others breaks down unhealthy barriers and removes our conversational filter. This allows us to talk about all sorts of things and have positive, challenging conversation and grow while the truth works behind the scenes in our minds.

A quote I saw the other day said from a blog called “bad cattitude” that was quite prescient:

As we openly discuss things as a community and we grow closer to others, regardless of their opinions, we learn to sort through the information and we will eventually find the truth. If we are willing to discuss ALL things, the truth needs no protection, it will eventually come to the surface and be un-assailable.

With the real relationships that are built through coaching people and walking alongside them in their health journey, we have the opportunity to share the truth with them. Sometimes it’s not what they want to hear, but our job as coaches (and in any relationship we truly value) is to speak truth into people’s lives that will help them, and then provide support and care as they deal with difficult facts.

Sometimes, it’s easier to remain in “your truth” rather than confront something like bloodwork that is pointing to heart disease or alcoholism. It’s easier to ignore small signs of danger and hope it goes away. But, in these types of relationships where you are truly a friend, spouse, or genuinely care about your clients, you must bring up the truth and help the people you care about work through what needs to be done to improve their situation.

Sometimes all you can do is present what you see and then give them time to decide if they are going to do anything about it. This is the hardest, especially for me as a coach and engineer, I like to fix things. It’s built into my DNA. However, many times I have to say what I need to say and then wait and let the person process. The effort spent to help them is far more fruitful when they are ready to receive it and ask for help. Otherwise, you may end up wasting your valuable time trying to help when the person isn’t ready for it.

This year, my goal, and I would challenge you to make your goal as well, will be to have these real conversations with everyone I can make time for. God provides each of these relationships and interactions for a reason, and I plan to make them count. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes along the way and likely offend some, but the benefits are worth the risk. Those you care about are worth the effort.

A witness saves lives when he tells the truth; when he tells lies, he betrays people

(Proverbs 14:25).

Listen as Wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice! . . . Everything I say is right, for I speak the truth and detest every kind of deception

(Proverbs 8:1, 6 - 7).