“So come on, let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on ‘salvation by self-help’ and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!

Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public! Parched ground that soaks up the rain and then produces an abundance of carrots and corn for its gardener gets God’s ‘Well done!’ But if it produces weeds and thistles, it’s more likely to get cussed out. Fields like that are burned, not harvested.

I’m sure that won’t happen to you, friends. I have better things in mind for you—salvation things!” – Hebrews 6 (The Message)

This isn’t easy to admit, but there is one side of my character that is remarkably thick-skinned and another side that is intensely thin-skinned. To a degree, both sides are the opposites of what I wish they were.

I’ve sat across the table as friends admitted to cheating on/had been cheated on by their wives or broke the news that they lost their job. I’ve sat on the other side of the plexi-glass in a prison and talked on the phone to a friend who’s serving a 30-some year sentence for a horrible crime. I’ve watched family members die slowly and walked with friends who did the same with their spouses and children. Sad? Of course. Painful to watch? Absolutely.

But even at the epicenter of a confidant’s uber-emotional confiding–and though I’m honored and usually humbled that they’d share such sacred news with me–I’m not a wreck. My heart doesn’t always crumble, and I can count on a single hand how many times I’ve ever cried over someone’s hurt.

At times I’ve joked about it with close friends, quoting Arrested Development‘s self-obsessed character (but who on the show wasn’t?) Gob Bluth: “The tears…the tears just aren’t coming.” But in truth, it really bothers me that I don’t…or can’t…get more emotionally stirred when trials strike someone else.

Conversely? If you want to get my heart pounding, tell me “Matt, we need to talk.” If you want to boil my blood, point out a failure of mine as a parent–especially if it’s in comparison to another parent’s achievement. Correct me in public. Short-change my children. Reject me in the myriad ways one person could reject another, which, anyone in the social media age can attest, there are many opportunities for rejection.

Certainly, as I grow in the truth of Christ and how I identify myself with the Lord’s supreme validation, I’m shades better by the year. But for most of my adult life, I’ve been pretty weak when it’s come to criticism.

At first analysis, as someone who doesn’t cry over others and spurts blood over the slightest scratch of critique targeted at me, it would seem that I’m just as self-obsessed and narcissistic as the aforementioned Bluth family in AR. Of course, that’s an ugly thing to own up to.

If it’s true.

I’ve voiced all of these concerns about my emotional “numbness” toward others to a close, wise friend. Her response? Maybe God didn’t make you a crier. Maybe he didn’t make you particularly sensitive in that way–so you’d be able to talk with people who have done hurtful things or experienced massive amounts of pain, and remain calm and objective for and/or toward them. Maybe staying emotionally neutral is actually a result of being spiritually rooted in truth.”

If THAT’s true, I’m grateful for that cover over my heart, like a latex glove, that allows me to feel, but also leaves space for perspective and some healthy guardedness.

The writer of Hebrews gets pretty tough in Chapter 6 and, as the receiver of this exhortation, I find myself admittedly thin-skinned as a result. At least initially. Not offended, necessarily, but certainly a bit wounded and afraid. I don’t want to get cussed out. I don’t want to my “field” to be burned because it only produced gnarly things.

But then, as I think about this, as much as I’m thin-skinned and sometimes held hostage by my own sensitivities in areas, I’m also willingly vulnerable and decidedly teachable. There’s a big difference between oversensitivity and vulnerability.

I appreciate the writer’s tenderness even in his tough love: he refers to his audience as “beloved,” which means simply “loved ones — you whom I love.” It’s the only time he uses this word in Hebrews–consequently, while sharing the hardest words in the book. He realizes that what he has to say isn’t going to be received easily. And in fact, it’s likely some–or a lot–of his audience is going to take it the wrong way and feel judged, that he’s just pointing out their imperfections from behind a proverbial pulpit.

It’s hard to see it this way, but when we hold back from sharing honest truth from people we love (or anyone, for that matter), we’ve made that relationship an idol. We’ve put that person’s feelings about/toward us up higher than God’s calling and our obedience in living it out. It’s risky, because feelings could get hurt and anyone particularly immature may abandon the relationship altogether. But it’s immature of us to not take that risk out of fear. There is no fear in love, right?

As receivers of hard truths and criticism, I certainly need to be reminded constantly that I have an advocate in heaven that is infinitely more powerful and refreshingly more compelling than any accuser on earth. Knowing and living by this truth creates such freedom — more freedom than anything the world could promise — to listen to criticism, take it into consideration, and not be wounded, full of self-pity, or resentful.

Thank you, Father, for using this passage to help us learn to love and be loved when heaven and hell are at stake and hard questions need to be asked. Thank you for not only your reassurance in the face of criticism, that we have a massive foundation of salvation because of your Son’s death and resurrection, but also for the people who come into our lives to love us well through truth that is sometimes hard to receive, but ultimately loving and redemptive.

Please soften my heart so that I can be sensitive to the hurts and needs of others, and fill me with boldness and confidence so that I can receive criticism and in any circumstance, rest in my assurance of your loving power and protection.