Honest

So what do we do with our demons? With the things that are bigger than us, that leave us feeling exposed, ostracized, and fighting for our lives? 

We're pulling these reflections from the Gospel accounts of Jesus with the demoniac, with a man possessed by (as it turns out, "many") demons, living naked in a cemetery with chains hanging from his body, literally beating himself up while battling a darkness that would literally send pigs over a cliff. 

And if that's our reference point, then the first thing we have to do with our demons is...

Let them speak. 

Be honest about them. 

Give our struggles a voice. 

We're very busy trying to hide what we're going through, trying to be quiet about what we're fighting, wrestling in the dark and all by our lonesome.

But when Jesus steps out of that boat and is greeted by a naked, bruised, bleeding man in that cemetery, the man isn't the first one to speak. 

The demons are. 

The demons start screaming at Jesus, begging Him to leave. The demons start making noise about who they are. They throw the man into the kind of raging fit the townspeople have known him for; he looks like a freaking lunatic. That's what demons do. 

But recognize this, too: when Jesus starts speaking back, the demons start answering Him. 

The demons go from screaming about everything to responding to Jesus's questions. He speaks gently, but firmly. Who are you? What is your name? What are you doing? What's your goal here? The first thing we have to do is let our demons have the chance to answer these questions - to identify themselves, to be real about what's going on, to be honest about the situation. 

And - let me interject here - if you're someone who is trying to love someone who is battling their demons, the first thing for you to do is to listen. Let the demons speak. Ask a few meaningful questions, but let them do the talking. Put it all out on the table and let there be honesty and authenticity and transparency about the reality of the situation. 

Anyway, the demons speak, Jesus asks a few questions, the demons answer, and when the time comes for something to be done about the demons, it's not by power of might. It's not by force. It's a dialogue. 

Jesus wants the demons out of the man. The demons don't want to go just anywhere. There's a herd of pigs. That seems like a reasonable option. Let's do that. 

Listen, Jesus could have just been like, "No. Gone. Get out. Now." And the demons would have had to flee. But you know what He said somewhere else - that demons leave, then finding nowhere else to go, they come back to the place they left, seven times stronger. This guy doesn't have capacity in his soul for seven times stronger. 

Jesus could have commanded the demons to leave, but at this point, He was already in dialogue with them. They were having a conversation. And...our demons get to be part of our conversations. They get to be part of our figuring out what to do with them. The battles we're facing get to be part of the resolution to end them. 

We know that, right? By sheer force alone, we aren't winning. If we were, we'd have defeated our demons a long time ago. 

Rather, it has to be a dialogue. It has to be a conversation. It has to be listening and asking questions and it starts with letting our demons speak and being honest about the whole thing. 

But it doesn't end there, either.