day no. 15,220: tasty tartness and sickly sweetness

"'I’d rather be blown up by you than praised by those other people!' The fact is, there’s a way of doing such things so that the person reproved feels positively grateful to you. One may kick a man downstairs in such a fashion that he will rather like it. While another may open a door in such an offensive way that you don’t want to go through till he is out of the way." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Soul Winner: How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour

There is a kind of compliment that is wicked and a kind of conflict that is winsome.There is a tartness that tastes good and a sweetness that sickens.

Proverbs 27:5-6
Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

God's gift to you are those from whom you invite a strike and those for whom no compliment could entice. If you only have yay-sayers, you are likely to coast and spin like a bike gear with no teeth. You are free to fall downhill, but you cannot climb. If you have only nay-sayers, you are likely to despair like a bike with only one pedal. You can make a go of it, but everything always seems so much harder than it needs to be.

Pray that God would give you friends who love you enough to wound while also revealing to you those foes whose honey is but a trap for flies.