Minivan Lessons for Life
Disagree Well > Coercing Consensus
The air temperature, seating arrangement, appropriate singing volume, infringement of property (earbuds and masks are high offenses) are all easy options for disagreement in a car packed full of kids.
I’ve often tried — in vain and with great exasperation —to get my kids to reach a consensus or at least give us some peace and pretend they have! However, as they’ve gotten older my goal is less about getting them to agree on everything and more about teaching them how to act and solve problems especially when they disagree.
People hold strong opinions. What one kid thinks is a lovely rendition of Jingle Bells drives another absolutely nuts. And while one child is convinced they may be experiencing heatstroke, the other suffers from hypothermia — all in the same car. It’s truly amazing and maddening.
Consensus may be near impossible, but learning to act with courtesy and knowing how to relate to others in disagreement is not. This applies to more than the mini-van.
Culture loves the line “that’s your truth” which sounds like a courteous way to disagree, but it only works until the contradictory sacred cows cross. As soon as that happens (pick your cause) people are canceled, painted with broad derogatory strokes, and looked down on with moral indignation. And so we morally leverage ourselves higher off the perceived stupidity of others.
Tell me this doesn’t happen from car rides to Twitter to Congress? It’s lead to more standoffs than headlines can cover and has created a polarized depressed nation with nothing but burned bridges.
What if we turned our focus from trying to achieve consensus, and instead walked in our own communities with the principles of Philippians?
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:3-7.
Be humble. This doesn’t mean being timid and passive mice but instead speaking with courage and boldness not laced in arrogance or self-righteousness.
Listen. Listening isn’t compromising truth but reflects love as we seek to understand. Understanding does not mean agreement, but reflects love and value. This is part of how we look out for the interests of others.
Serve one another. This doesn’t mean we pretend to agree, sacrifice truth, or only say non-contentious things for the sake of getting along. But it does reflect the intent of our interactions is not one of decimation but of seeking the welfare of others.
Don’t settle for nice. Today’s “nice” often means mean quiet resentment under a facade of congeniality and consensus. We can aim much higher: in disagreement be truthful and patient, bold and humble, gentle and courageous, seeking and servant-hearted.
January Wallpapers
Each year I re-read a little gem of a book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Keller. Here’s a sampling of the book which can be read in less than an hour, but may grow you in Christ all year long:
If we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble. They would not be always telling us they were a nobody (because a person who keeps saying they are a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person). The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.
Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, ‘I’m in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?’ True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness. The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.
Subscribers: Enjoy these wallpapers I created as backgrounds for your laptops/phones for the month of January. May it rescue you as many times as it has me.
January Quote: Gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.
Desktop Wallpaper (right-click, “save image as”, set as the desktop image)
Phone Wallpaper (save the image to phone, set as wallpaper)