Defensiveness

defensiveness is as much a defense against truth as a defense against CONDEMNATION

Critical words are painful because they are an assault upon one’s self-perception.

Self-perception is governed in large part by the opinions of others. Each of us lives in a matrix, a complex of relationships, and who we are or who we think we are is often defined by where we perceive ourselves to fit into that complex. Where and how we fit is determined to a large extent by the acceptance or the rejection of others.

The largest contributor to self-perception is one’s spouse. Each spouse relies on the other spouse for the support necessary for his or her own self-perception. Indeed, it is this very acceptance that becomes a pillar of the marriage because acceptance is the core of love and love is the core of the marriage. Criticism and unforgiveness are the opposite of acceptance. It is for this reason that scripture condemns criticism and unforgiveness with such severity.

It is painful when anyone assaults our self-perception with critical, complaining, condemnatory words. Words of this nature are rejections of who we are; they are threatening and they are sin.1 Nevertheless, scripture tells us that we are to receive them without taking offense.2 Scripture forbids criticism and condemnation from both directions, both from the speaker and from the hearer. They should never be spoken initially and they should never be spoken in response to an attack. But when they are spoken the hearer should leave the offense on the table and never pick it up.

Never keep score.

The Wall

The man or woman who is forced to defend himself constructs a conceptual wall that protects him or her from verbal assault.

The wall is a mixture of justifications, past offenses and counter-criticisms. Each of these elements has a use. Each counter-criticism is effective not only to injure the assaulting party, but also to bolster justification, which is the true strength of the wall. The past offenses (coins) are the tips of the arrows that are fired back into the assaulting party. Insults are available in the event that the supply of coins is exhausted. Sometimes the wall is loud and sometimes it is quiet, but every time its purpose is to protect the defending party from criticism and condemnation. Without criticism and condemnation, there is no reason for the wall.

The tragedy of the wall is that it is so very effective. It blocks out not only actual, destructive criticism and condemnation, but all perceived threats as well including well-intended reproof. The wall of defense stops everything, good and bad.

The wall of defense is destructive to the person who uses it because it protects him from considering his own failings and enables him to construct a perception of himself that is not grounded in reality. This self-perception can become, if you will, a bubble of pride. The more the bubble is inflated, the more vulnerable it becomes. And the more vulnerable it becomes, the stronger the wall has to be to protect it and the stronger the wall becomes, the more effective it is to enable the defender to construct whatever version of reality is most pleasing.

If the weakness that is made imperceptible by the wall is sin, the wall is “protecting” the defender from confession, repentance and forgiveness because confession (admission of guilt) is necessary to be right with God and right with others:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.3

Instead of utilizing confession and forgiveness to deal with sin and to balance the equities in his life, the defensive person uses the wall and the coins and condemnations, denials and justifications, counter-measures or ridicule that make up the wall to protect himself from injury. Bad choice.

The defensive person is a weak person because he cannot allow himself to perceive himself as less than what he has created himself to be. The defensive person has to have a wall.

Humility

Humility is the antidote to the natural tendency to construct the wall. Humility, at its core, is self-respect and respect for others. It fosters clarity of understanding and accuracy of perception.4 The wall of defense protects the vulnerable and weak person who must rely upon self-deceptions to obtain emotional equanimity.

Humility, on the other hand, is the opposite of the wall of defense. Humility is a place of certainty, a place of accurate self-perception. When we arrive at this place, piercing words do not pierce for long because we are resting self-respect upon reality and reality “is what it is” no matter what anyone says about it. If the piercing words are accurate, the humble person will accept them with thanksgiving and utilize them for emotional and spiritual growth. If the piercing words are inaccurate, they are irrelevant.

Humility always recognizes that there may be some truth in what is being said. Humility takes no offense and has no edifice of pride. Instead, it receives all that has been said with open minded care and quietly accepts that part that is true and rejects that part that is false-and has the wisdom to tell the difference.

There is always value in reproof, even if it is no more than the fact that someone considered it necessary to give it.

… he who hates reproof is stupid…5

To relinquish defensiveness is to permit one’s ego to be sanded down to who one truly is, and to start from that point, the point of sound judgment and reality-sound judgment and reality that is not based solely on the opinions of others.

This is the biblical process of sanctification.6 It is the relinquishment of pride for the purpose of gaining well-grounded self-respect. It is the surrendering of all misconceptions and no longer perpetuating pride and in its place establishing the accuracy of understanding and clear vision. This process results in the realization that the wall is not only not necessary, but a serious hindrance as well.

Tearing down the wall of defensiveness may feel like death at first because it means the death of pride and pride is inevitably equated with ourselves. Pride is our self-perception. One may fear that after the sanding there will be nothing left. But, in fact, there is always something left and that something is much larger than it appears because, for the Christian, the nugget that remains contains the presence of Christ and His peace.

The relinquishment of the wall of defense is not death. It is life. It is life because without the wall there is truth, peace and freedom. The wall of defense constrains more than it defends. There is no freedom behind that wall. True freedom is to be at that place where the wall is not necessary.

What can a spouse do to remove the wall erected by the other spouse? The answer is in scripture. The wall was erected to defend against condemnations and critical words, which can take the form of repeated complaints, digs and expressions of dissatisfaction. The way to remove the wall is to render it unnecessary by accepting the spouse with an unconditional acceptance.

One renders the wall to be unnecessary by never speaking critical, condemnatory words, by never complaining, by never reminding, nagging or being sarcastic because all of those things are forms of criticism.

And that is Matthew 7:1, “Judge not…”

Matthew 7:1 is the scriptural method for the breaching of the wall of defense. It was written to show how defensive walls can be rendered useless by aggrieved spouses who are willing to yield to scripture in spite of their injuries.