3 Questions To Ask When Offering Healthy Correction
Nobody likes to be corrected, but good friends offer healthy correction because they know better things are ahead. In exploring what makes people better friends, healthy correction is one way to express love and loyalty. It's important to note that healthy correction only comes in the context of friendship when friends strive for better together!
The friendship Jesus has with Peter is a model of healthy correction in love and loyal friendship. Read the full story here. Long story short, in John 18, Peter says no to knowing his friend Jesus, denying Him three times over a charcoal fire, and in John 21, Jesus invites Peter to say yes to Him three times over breakfast together. Peter's encounters with Jesus demonstrate the redemptive nature of their friendship because of healthy correction. From saying no to yes, from solitude to communion, from estrangement to friendship, from an old way of living to a better way with Jesus, Peter returns over and over again to better friendship with Jesus.
Jesus spent time living and walking with Peter, establishing a personal relationship of love and loyalty. So, when Peter walks away only to return to his old way of living as a fisherman rather than a fisher of men, Jesus makes space to call Peter back to the best of who He created him to be, as disciple and friend. Jesus offers healthy correction not from a distance but from across the fire in the context of friendship.
In healthy correction, the relationship is always more important than the problem. Correction is what you offer those you love when their behavior doesn't match who they are becoming. When your friend needs correction, ask these three questions to keep the friendship at the forefront of the conversation:
Have I firmly established the personal relationship of love and loyalty?
Will this help them return to becoming their best?
In offering correction in the context of friendship, am I willing to commit to working towards better together?
Friends offer healthy correction to better their relationship! While healthy correction can be a challenging conversation to have, remember to stay relational and connected, pursuing, prioritizing, and pushing one another in the direction of Jesus!