by: Cris Corzine-McCloskey
Last week I talked about one of the first effects of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They lost their ability to see themselves as God saw them, and formed a shame-based mentality instead. Shame then drove them to cover themselves with fig leaves and hide from God (Genesis 3:7). This is the birth of defensiveness, which is where good relationships and communication go to die.
At it’s core, defensiveness is the instinct that tells you to cover yourself and either lie or go on the attack when you feel threatened or shameful. Notice I said ‘feel’ threatened? The tricky thing about defensiveness is most of the time it is operating on a faulty belief system. For instance, Adam and Eve were hiding and feeling shameful with God, who was not their enemy. The serpent had been their enemy, but they missed that fact. Instead of running to the one that could help them, they covered themselves, hid, and started blaming others when God approached them (Genesis 3:12-13).
Here is how this looks nowadays in the average home. ‘Honey, did you have a chance to take the trash out?’ This brings an angry reply of ‘You didn’t get the dishes done, but you want to hammer me about the trash?!’ You can almost hear the bell ring, and sure enough, both parties come out verbally swinging. See the pattern? One spouse viewed the other as the enemy when questioned about something, and they quickly fired a shot of blame in defense. And here’s the faulty premise…our spouse is not our enemy! If this pattern happens often enough both parties will give up trying to communicate with the other. They will say that it is because everything they talk about ends up in a fight. Why? Misfiring red flags going off because of a shame-based mentality that says ‘cover and blame!!’ Without communication you can’t have real intimacy, and once that goes, well, the couple is in serious trouble.
Frankly, this is the number one problem I see with most couples in marriage counseling. They don’t talk, they defend. They don’t listen, they load their weapons, pulling out bullets of past short-comings to fire out at one another. Often, all it would take to call a cease fire is for one party to be brave enough to listen to the other, stop firing back, be vulnerable, and remember, that person is not your enemy. Just like Adam and Eve missed that the real enemy was the serpent, same goes with us. “We don’t battle flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12).” Recognize that the real enemy is still the serpent, and we need to defend ourselves from his lies. So, my advice is love huge, be vulnerable, and quit listening to snakes!
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