"That's not nice."

One day my daughter came home from a middle school Christian youth gathering. I asked her how it went and she began to describe something all too familiar. My daughter explained that during discussion groups one of the young girls began talking about how she really cannot stand these two girls at school. The girls were mean to her and she really hated them for it.

This probably happens in every social circle in middle school. This is not new and certainly everyone alive has faced feeling hatred for someone who is mean to them. So I asked my daughter, “So what did the leader say to her?” My daughter told me that the leader told the young girl, “That’s not nice.”

Ugh.

I often found this difficult with my own children; to tell them that their behavior wasn’t right without looking into their hearts. To correct them by telling them, “That’s not nice.” However, to truly understand their behavior I must start with looking into their hearts and helping them see their true identity. They are children of God defined by the finished work of Jesus and who they are in Christ begins shaping what they do.

I grieved for this young girl who was opening up about her life. She chose to come into her community group that night and confess the struggling in her heart. Maybe she said it nasty and maybe she wasn’t being “nice”, but I wondered what the church would be like if we responded differently to honesty. I wondered how this young girl viewed her identity in Christ, and I wondered what would happen if she were to respond to these mean girls out of that identity.

Let us believe for a moment that this young girl knew that it was “not nice” to hate people and that is why she opened up. Let us just believe that she wanted to change and that telling someone of her struggle would free her and would allow her to love these “mean” girls. That her small group would understand her struggle. That this gathering would be a safe place to not pretend to be “nice” but to admit when sin was invading her heart. That her group would sharpen and encourage her to live in His righteousness and not her own. In His strength and not her own. That they would point her in the direction of her true identity when the world was trying to tell her lies about it.

It isn’t about being nice or not being nice. It is about giving ourselves to the only one that resisted retaliation of people who were mean. The only one who could overcome temptation and the only one who can heal us from the guilt and the shame that causes us to hide and pretend. Let’s believe for a moment that what this young girl was doing was being honest and that what she didn’t need was a reminder that she is “not nice” but a reminder that Jesus’ love for her is overwhelming. That He paid it all and now she is free to love even those who are mean because they are not her identity. Jesus is.