After a few all-music shows, the latest episode of my Cephas Hour podcast, featuring the best of Christian rock and pop from then and now, reverts to spoken inserts in-between songs. I pray these words bring comfort to the brokenhearted.
You can listen to the show, which in addition to the songs shown below features a sextet of terrific Daniel Amos tunes, on-demand at the show’s website. The podcast is available for subscription via Apple, Google, and iHeart.
There’s a tremendous, often sadly neglected richness in the English language. We should all use it more often. I’m not referring to throwing maximum verbiage around in an effort to appear bright. Instead, we should avail ourselves of language’s power, appreciating how even simple phrases can hold surprising depth. Case in point: someone is getting, or has gotten, the best of you.
The most common association tied to this saying is someone has bettered or bested you. He or she ran faster, jumped higher, got the promotion you sought, snagged the one your heart longed for, etc. He or she won, you lost, and you will not be receiving a consolation prize, make-up call, or participation trophy. Suck it up, buttercup. The next competition starts now.
Another interpretation exists for someone getting the best of you. Namely, give someone the best you have to offer: your experience, support, and love. Sometimes this is gratefully received. Many times … well, not so much.
There are certain things we learn, or hopefully learn, as we pass through the years. A prime example of this is coming to grips with the good advice that we should not expect respect for our anger. This comes into play the first time during our tender years that any of us throws a temper tantrum without reaping the hoped-for reward. Unless a spanking was that for which we had a hankering.
We also learn, or should learn, not to expect respect for our tears or reciprocation for our love. This is a far more difficult lesson to swallow. We are taught from the beginning to respect others, to honor the heralded tremendous power of love, and that true love always triumphs while conquering all and overcoming all obstacles. Yet through bitter and often embittering experiences, we learn how love is often impotent, incapable of swaying others in any direction, let alone the one we desire. Those who do not realize this, such as starry-eyed women unshakable in their pursuit of utterly undesirable men believing they can transform jerks into jewels, invariably have their ship of hopes dashed against reality’s rocks. You’d think this would be sufficient to teach us, but we often embody insanity by attempting the same thing while anticipating different results. The Biblical truism that pride goes before a fall is not exclusively reserved for the outwardly arrogant. It also applies to those of us who, while outwardly modest and/or well-intentioned, sadly overestimate our ability.
It hurts when love isn’t returned. The illustration of a rejected Savior is hard to understand until we encounter a one-sided love of our own. The other person doesn’t look at you in a special way. He or she doesn’t soften when you’re around. He or she isn’t interested in a relationship on any level save perhaps that of casual acquaintance, quickly forgotten the moment close proximity is no longer in effect. Maybe the person does allow you to approach them, but even then, only within his or her strictly defined and absolute, non-negotiable parameters. Held at arm’s length? Most definitely. Held in each other’s arms? Never. And yes, it makes life a living hell. An accurate description, for hell’s torment is not fire and brimstone but rather separation from love.
The illustration in Scripture’s most misunderstood and misapplied chapter states that when I was a child, I spoke, thought, and acted like a child; in adulthood laying these childish things aside. It seems strange to think, believe, and act on the notion that there are times when laying love aside is an act of maturity. More accurately, not so much setting love itself on the shelf but learning how to be at peace with the fact others can and will disregard your love for them.
It hurts when love isn’t returned. There is no escaping, no denying the pain. If there is anything good to be drawn from these times, it is from the empathy gained for fellow sufferers and how it makes more real our need to embrace — more accurately, allow ourselves to be embraced by — the nail-scarred hands belonging to the Man of Sorrows, One well acquainted with grief. He knows. He understands. He comforts. And He never rejects our love.
Never.
Many, many times, someone getting the best of you is rooted not in their besting you but rather in you giving your best to someone who throws your best away. Forgiving those who have wrongly abused you, intentionally or not, is brutally difficult. But, it is the highest level of giving our best, one in which we have Christ’s hand on our shoulder as He says, “I know the feeling.”