Can I tell you something that I'm really good at? It's reading a room. I can usually tell when something is off, you know, if somebody is irritated, or somebody's uncomfortable, or somebody said something that just landed wrong. You know, the temperature in the room changes, and honestly, I feel it. And when that happens, there is a part of me that immediately wants to fix it, you know, to smooth it over or make everybody comfortable again. Maybe change the subject, or I'll crack a really good joke or translate what somebody probably meant. Basically, emotional air traffic control. "Okay, you're cleared for landing. You hold your position, and nobody say anything we're going to regret later," okay? And for a long time, I think I confused that with being a peacemaker. But I'm learning, okay? I'm learning here. Through all this, yes, I'm still learning. There is a big difference between making peace and simply keeping things peaceful because sometimes the room feels peaceful only because nobody is saying what's true. Sometimes the relationship looks healthy because one person has decided it's just easier to stay quiet. Sometimes what we call peace is actually avoidance, and eventually, whatever we keep avoiding starts costing us, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today Welcome to Pilot Light. I am your host, Josh, and this season we are talking about passing the flame, about the way we influence people, how we encourage them, how we show up for them, how we listen, how we love people well. And today, I want to talk to you about one of the hardest parts of loving people well. All right? It's telling the truth, especially when the truth might make things uncomfortable. Now listen, if you are someone who enjoys conflict, I do not understand you. I am fascinated by you. In fact, I'd like scientists to study you because I do not wake up in the morning thinking, "You know what would make today just really awesome? A good old tense conversation." Okay? I like harmony. I like people getting along, and I especially do not like hurting people. Okay? Those can be good qualities, but, but taken too far, they can turn into avoidance. So today, I wanna talk to you about something I have had to learn myself. Okay? Peacekeeping and peacemaking are not the same thing. So wherever you're listening from, let's light the pilot light I have spent a lot of my life trying to make people comfortable. And I don't mean that negatively, okay? I genuinely care about people. If I walk into a room, I naturally start reading it. Okay, who feels left out? Who's uncomfortable? Who's upset? Who needs encouragement? What can I do to help everybody in this room connect? There's a part of me that adapts almost automatically to it. I can become more serious in one room, more relaxed in another, more outgoing when the room needs energy, and then quieter when somebody needs space. And I've come to understand that part of myself differently. I'm not necessarily changing who I am, and in many ways, really what I'm doing is I'm translating. I'm trying to speak a language that helps the person in front of me feel understood. You know what? Honestly, that is a gift. But every gift has a shadow side, and the shadow side of being good at reading a room is that you can become so skilled at maintaining the temperature that you stop saying things that might change it You know something needs to be addressed, but you think, "Eh, you know what? Maybe this is not the right time." Then tomorrow comes along and you're like, "You know, probably not today either." Then three weeks later, all of a sudden you're having an argument in your own head with somebody who has absolutely no idea there's a problem. And if you've ever done that, you know where you've had 14 imaginary conversations, and you've made really excellent points, and frankly, you've been brilliant, and the other person keeps losing every argument, mostly because they aren't actually there. Meanwhile, in real life, "Everything okay?" "Yep, everything's good." That's not peace. That is postponement. You know, just to be honest here, the leadership roles that I've had ,have put me in some situations where I feel like I'm a fireman at times. It's like you're just constantly putting out fires. And anybody who's been in leadership before knows exactly what I'm talking about. You just feel like you're just chasing one fire after another. But what I've realized is I became really good at, you know, like I said, I could read the room. So I knew stuff was coming before it even would show up, and so I would proactively try to put out those fires quickly, like just kind of put a little wet blanket on things. And what I didn't realize is there was times where I would try to do that, and maybe, yes, it put out the fire. There was still smoke going on. But I would think, "Okay, I took care of that for right now," but I knew that fire was gonna pop up again. So instead of talking about that and being truthful and, and dealing with those situations, it was easier just to kind of put the wet blanket on there and deal with the temperature in the room and bring it down to a, a manageable level and stuff so that everybody could kind of just get along. And I would say I was guilty of that. I was guilty of that in my last job, and I'm working on those things, trying to be more, uh, thoughtful in how to deal with situations as I've transitioned into this new job. You know, there's, there's a moment where, where something changed, where I thought about some of those things. And here's what I had to confront. Sometimes... Okay, listen, I'm being honest here. Sometimes I avoid difficult conversations, not because I am protecting the other person. I am protecting myself. I'm protecting myself from, honestly, their disappointment, or maybe it's their anger or their reaction, the possibility that they're just not gonna understand me, the possibility that they're gonna think differently about me. And that realization is extremely uncomfortable, because it's easy to call avoidance kindness. You know, "I, I just don't want to hurt them." Well, maybe, but sometimes what we're really saying is, "I don't want to experience what might happen when I tell them the truth." Those are different things, and this is where I've had to redefine kindness, because kindness isn't making sure nobody ever feels uncomfortable. Sometimes kindness requires enough courage to enter discomfort for the sake of something better. So here's our big idea for today. Okay, listen in. Peacekeeping avoids tension. Peacemaking walks through tension towards something healthier. Peacekeepers, you know, basically ask, "How do I keep everybody happy?" Peacemakers ask, "What does this relationship need in order to be healthy?" Those questions can lead to very different choices, because sometimes a healthy relationship needs encouragement, sometimes it needs patience, sometimes it needs forgiveness, and sometimes it needs a conversation neither person honestly particularly wants to have. The goal isn't conflict, the goal is truth handled with love. So here's my first point Silence isn't always kindness. There is a phrase and a quote that I'm gonna probably bring it back to Dave Ramsey, 'cause I think I listened to that on a, on a leadership podcast. But here's the quote, and it is stuck in my brain, and I think about it all the time. "Clarity is kindness." Okay? I'm gonna say that one more time. "Clarity is kindness." Okay? Write that down. Hold onto it. Put it in your brain. Burn it into that spot of your, your brain that you need to think this through, for all of you people who are peacekeepers, okay? Clarity is kindness. I believe that. But I think there's another piece to it, too, okay? Clarity without kindness can become cruelty, and kindness without clarity can become avoidance. We need both. If someone I care about is doing something that is damaging our relationship, and I never tell them, have I really been kind? If an employee is struggling, and I keep saying everything is fine because I don't want an uncomfortable conversation, then six months later they're shocked when there's a major problem, was that kindness? Or if I'm hurt by something my spouse did, but instead of talking about it, all of a sudden I become distant or sarcastic or quietly resentful. You know, I'm still communicating. I'm just communicating really bad. Avoided conversations don't disappear. They leak into tone, into distance, into resentment, into assumptions, into the story we start telling ourselves about the other person. Sometimes the kindest thing that we can do is tell the truth early, before frustration turns into resentment. All right, so here's my second point. How you say it matters, okay? Now, this is important. Clarity is kindness. It's not permission to become a jerk, okay? Let me say that one more time. Clarity is kindness, okay? We're being clear. We're, we're, we're, we're giving the truth, right? It is not a permission for you to become a jerk, okay? You don't get to say something cruel, then shrug it off and say, "Well, you know what? I'm just being honest." Sorry, no. You don't give it... That's not a pass there. Honesty without love isn't maturity. Sometimes it's just aggression wearing a name tag. Truth matters, yes, but so does delivery. Before a hard conversation, I've learned there are some really important questions worth asking, okay? First of all, what am I actually trying to accomplish? Am I trying to help or am I trying to win? That's a big thing. Okay, you and your spouse together, are you trying to help, are you trying to win? Am I speaking from concern or am I speaking from anger? Have I tried to understand their perspective first? Would I want someone to speak to me this way? Ooh, ouch. And maybe the biggest one, can I tell the truth without attacking the person's identity? Man, we do this all the time, right? It just seems like we go there. It's like, "You always do this," or, "You do that," or whatever. We attack their identity instead of dealing with the subject of what's going on. That's a huge difference between, You never care about me," and, "When things like this keep happening, I feel like what matters to me isn't being heard." One attacks the person, the other describes the problem. One invites defense, the other creates the possibility of understanding. Not always, but it does give us a chance, right? And let me tell you, I, I, I'm being honest here, I have failed at this so many times, and I'm sure you're looking at yourself going, "Yes, I have done that, too." You know, it's, it's really easy in those moments, in those tense times to either, you know, brush it under the rug or go out full blazing guns, right? Where we're just sitting there, like, attacking the other person because we're hurt. But neither one of those is right. Clarity is kindness, but we do it in a way that's respectful for the other person. So here's my point, point three. Sometimes love lets people be disappointed. Oh, this is a hard one. This is a hard one for people like me, okay? If you c- okay, you can love somebody, all right? And disappoint them. You can be kind. Guess what? And you can say no. You can care about someone and disagree with them. Oh my goodness, can we put that on the internet, right? We can care about people and still disagree with them. I know it's shocking. Can you just put that out there? C- someone tell somebody out there, because I- apparently that, that whole message right there has been completely missed, okay? You can care about someone and disagree with them. Oh, that's shocking. Okay? We don't have to all think the same. Okay, that's a, it's a total other soapbox and I, I could get up... Oh, never mind. I'm not gonna go there. But anyway, you can understand why someone feels it the way they do without changing your decision, and someone being upset with you doesn't automatically mean that you've done something wrong. That one took me a while, okay? I just naturally thought, "Okay, I, I don't want to have those conversations because I don't want people to think, you know, a different way about me. I want them to like me. I like them and I, and I want them to like me, too, but if I do this, it might ruin the relationship." And like I said, that one took me a while, because if you're wired to read people, another person's disappointment can feel like an alarm Fix it, make it better, change your answer, explain yourself again. You know, maybe if I use 17 more words, right, they'll finally agree with me. But maturity sometimes means allowing someone else to have their feelings without making those feelings your responsibility to move. Okay? You can say, "I understand why you're disappointed," and stop there. You don't have to add, "So I'll abandon whatever I believe is right to make this feeling go away." That's not cruelty. That's a boundary, and healthy relationships need them. They need those boundaries. All right? So here's the faith connection in this. Jesus said something that I think gets honestly misunderstood sometimes, okay? "Blessed are the peacemakers." Okay? I want you to notice something here, though, okay? He did not say, "Blessed are the peacekeepers." Jesus was incredibly compassionate, but he wasn't controlled by people's reactions. He told the truth. He challenged people. He confronted hypocrisy. He asked difficult questions. He disappointed people. Some people walked away from him, and yet he was full of grace and truth, not grace or truth, both. And I think that's the tension we're called to live in. Grace without truth can become enabling. Truth without grace can become harsh. Uh, uh, to be honest, I think that's the tension that churches live in today, that we kinda dump one for the other, and we kinda lean to whatever side that feels better for us. But the reality is, our grace without truth can become enabling, and truth without grace can become harsh. And you can probably attach a church to either one of those sides. But grace and truth together, that's where transformation happens. And maybe peacemaking isn't avoiding every uncomfortable moment. Maybe it's caring enough about another person and enough about the relationship to walk through discomfort with love. So let me ask you something. Is there a conversation you're avoiding? Listen, you already know which one I'm talking about, don't you? Okay? You It popped into your head as soon as I made that comment. Okay, maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's your child, a parent, a friend, someone you lead. Maybe there's a boundary that you need to establish, something maybe that you need to apologize for. Somebody hurt you, something that's been happening repeatedly. Maybe you've told yourself, "You know what? It's, eh," you know, you do this whole thing, "It's not that big of a deal." And maybe it isn't. But if you've been thinking about it for three months, it might be a bigger deal than you are admitting. So ask yourself, "Am I staying quiet because it's loving or because I am f- afraid of the reaction?" And that is a very different question, right? So here's this week's flame challenge. It's simple, okay? It's simple, but it may not be easy this week. All right? Here we go. Have one conversation that you have been avoiding, okay? Not recklessly, not angrily. Don't... Listen, okay? Don't hear this episode and immediately go text somebody or call them up and say, "We need to talk 'cause Josh said so." Okay? Please don't put that on me, okay? All right. Think. Think. Pray about it first. Get clear, get really clear about what actually needs to be said. Then enter the conversation with this goal: not to win, not to punish, not to unload everything that you have been rehearsing in your head, but to create understanding. Okay? You might start with, "Listen, there's something I've been meaning to talk with you about because I, I really care about our relationship." Or, "You know what? I don't want this to become bigger than it needs to be, but I, I really do think we need to talk about this," or maybe, "I need to apologize." Whatever your conversation is, bring clarity. Bring kindness. Bring courage. If you saw me right now here in my office, I'm literally, like, my hands, like they're bringing something, like carrying something. Okay? Bring clarity. Bring kindness. Bring courage. Bring it to the room, and then leave the room for the other person to speak too. Because remember what we talked about last week, listening still matters. All right, so to close out this episode, some of us have spent years believing that being a good person means being easy to be around, never upsetting anyone, never saying no, never disagreeing, never creating tension. But honestly, that's not love. That is performance. Real relationships have friction. They have misunderstandings, different expectations, different needs, different perspectives. The goal isn't a life without conflict, okay? That is impossible. The goal is becoming the kind of person who knows how to walk through conflict without losing love, someone who can be strong without becoming hard, kind without becoming passive, clear without being cruel. And maybe that's the part of what it means to pass the flame, because sometimes the most loving thing you can give somebody isn't another comfortable conversation, it's an honest one. All right, I want you to think about relationships that you want 20 years from now. Your marriage, your kids, your friendships, the people that you lead. Those relationships won't become strong because you never had difficult conversations. They will become strong because you learned how to have them well. So someday, I don't want people closest to me to say, "Josh always told me what I wanted to hear." I'd rather them say, "I knew he loved me enough to tell me the truth, and I always knew he loved me when he was telling it." That's the kind of relationship worth building, and that's the kind of person worth becoming, and that is a flame worth passing. All right, before you go, listen, I wanna hear from you. One of the things I wanted to do differently in this season of Pilot Light is keep it less of a one-way conversation. So tell me your story. Tell me who lit your Pilot Light. Tell me about a time someone believed in you, encouraged you, or showed up when you needed it most, or tell me how you were passing the flame to somebody else. Like I said, you don't have to, to write anything really profound, okay? Just tell me what happened, because throughout this season, I wanna share some of your stories right here on the podcast. You can send yours to me through the fan mail link in the episode description. And then honestly, while you're there, if Pilot Light has meant something to you, would you do two more things? Share the episode with one person who might need it, and take a minute to rate the show on the podcast app that you're listening on. Those small things make a huge difference, and it's more than you might realize. They help more people discover these conversations and become part of what we're building here. So but most, most importantly, honestly, I wanna hear from you, because this season isn't just about my stories. 'Cause if it's just about me, it's pretty lame. But it's about ours, right? 'Cause you have amazing stories, things that you have gone through, been through, and the Pilot Light in your own life. So tell me yours, and let's keep passing the flame. All right, thanks for spending time with me today. This week, don't confuse silence with peace. Be clear. Be kind. Listen well. And if there's a conversation you've been avoiding, maybe it's time, because peacekeeping avoids tension. Peacemaking walks through it towards something better. So all right, here we go. See farther, live deeper, become who you were created to be, and pass the flame. You were created to be a fire, not just a flicker, so keep the light on, and I will see you next time