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Responding When People Use God as an Excuse

Patrick Lencioni talks about why we should take seriously the claim “God told me we should do this” only in discussion with someone we trust, but not with people we don’t know well.

Transcript:

Host: We go now to Maria in Washington, DC, listening on Guadalupe Radio there in Washington DC. Maria, you are on with Patrick Lencioni, what’s your question?

Caller: My question is, I have the opposite take on what you just discussed. If I’m in a board meeting in a Christian nonprofit, and someone says we’re trying to work out a problem or project and someone said, “Well, I was in prayer today, and God told me to do such and such,” I mean, how do you respond to that?

Patrick: Well, I mean, this is an interesting one. I mean, and “if you’re in a board meeting” is an interesting thing, because that’s like, how well do you know this person? How much do you trust them inherently? Because if my wife comes to me and tells me that? Man, I’m listening. Okay. But if somebody I don’t know very well says that, I’m like, “Are you using this to try to win this argument?”

And so while I would never write that off, because God speaks through people, I think that’s where we’re talking about conflict among people with great levels of trust. And there are people that say those things, and though I can’t know their hearts, I know that some people sometimes use that as a way to kind of take things off the table. Like, “Well, God told me that you’re an idiot and I should be in charge, so there it is.”

Host: Is that the impression you get, Maria?

Caller: No no, that’s exactly right, when it comes from somebody I trust already, I take it to heart, and when it’s somebody I don’t trust, I think they’re trying to use it to manipulate the situation.

Patrick: And that’s why we need to build trust before we engage in conflict. I don’t think people that don’t know each other go, “Let’s engage in conflict!” I say, “No no no, first establish trust.” And as you said, Cy, that’s–we have something in common, we want to please God, we have a common faith, let’s draw upon that and then go there. But if a person uses that without trust and without knowing a person, it feels pretty manipulative.

Host: Thanks Maria, thanks very much for that.

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