Have The Talk

This morning I found myself sitting with Ephesians 4:14-16, and if I am being honest, I felt a little exposed.

Not because the passage is difficult to understand.

Because it is difficult to live.

Paul is writing to believers about spiritual maturity. He is not talking about church attendance, Bible trivia, or how many worship songs we know by heart. He is talking about transformation. The kind that changes how we think, speak, respond, love, and grow.

The kind that usually starts with a conversation we’d rather avoid.

“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15)

If there is one thing I have learned, it is that almost every significant season of growth in my life has been attached to a conversation I did not want to have.

Not because I didn’t want to grow.

Because I didn’t want to pay the cost of growth.

There is a difference.

When we think about hard conversations, we often imagine conflict, criticism, or confrontation. Yet hard conversations are not necessarily harsh conversations.

Harshness has to do with spirit.

Hardness has to do with content.

A conversation can be gentle and still be incredibly difficult.

A conversation can be loving and still require something from us that we don’t want to surrender.

Sometimes the hardest conversations are the ones where the truth costs us comfort.

And comfort is expensive to let go of.

Paul begins in Ephesians 4:14 with the problem.

The Problem

Paul says we should no longer be children, tossed back and forth by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching.

He is describing spiritual immaturity.

Not as an insult.

As a diagnosis.

Immaturity is the absence of growth when there has been enough time to grow.

Instability is living unanchored, where pressure determines our decisions instead of principles.

Naivety leaves us vulnerable to being manipulated by whatever sounds good in the moment.

When I read that, I immediately thought about how often I used to avoid difficult conversations.

Especially conversations about finances.

My husband and I have had multiple hard conversations over the years. We still do.

One of the biggest areas has been money.

Not because either of us was trying to hurt the other.

Not because we were fighting.

Because the truth was asking something from me.

Budgeting.

Intentional spending.

Paying attention.

Making decisions before emotions got involved.

Apparently “I had a stressful week” is not an official budgeting category.

Trust me, I checked.

Those conversations felt uncomfortable because they challenged habits I enjoyed. They exposed areas where I wanted freedom without responsibility.

And if I’m being completely transparent, there were times I interpreted conviction as criticism.

There were times I felt attacked when I was actually being invited into growth.

The enemy is incredibly good at that.

He whispers things like:

“They don’t understand you.”

“They’re judging you.”

“You’re being controlled.”

“You’re fine the way you are.”

Anything to keep us from engaging with the truth.

Anything to keep us immature.

Anything to keep us from growing.

The Prescription

Paul gives the answer in Ephesians 4:15.

Speak the truth.

Not avoid it.

Not dance around it.

Not bury it under passive aggressive comments.

Not pretend everything is okay.

Speak the truth.

I think many of us have mistaken holiness for simply not lying.

Yet Paul goes further.

It isn’t just “don’t tell lies.”

It is actively telling the truth.

Truth is God’s viewpoint on a matter.

And sometimes withholding truth can be just as damaging as speaking falsehood.

There have been moments in my marriage where silence felt easier than honesty.

Moments where I could have avoided a conversation and protected my temporary comfort.

Yet avoiding truth doesn’t create peace.

It postpones reality.

The Process

The part we often miss is that Paul doesn’t stop at truth.

He says truth in love.

Love is the environment truth needs.

Without truth, love becomes sentimental.

Without love, truth becomes a weapon.

Culture often tells us love means avoiding difficult truths so nobody gets hurt.

The church can sometimes swing to the opposite extreme and call brutality boldness.

Neither reflects Jesus.

Jesus came full of grace and truth.

Not grace or truth.

Truth delivered without love leaves wounds.

Love delivered without truth leaves people stuck.

Real love is caring enough to tell the truth while caring enough about the person to walk through it with them.

I have learned that the way I deliver truth often reveals as much about my heart as the truth itself.

Love is not the absence of hard truth.

It is the presence of genuine care while hard truth is being spoken.

Sometimes the most loving thing my husband has done is tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

Sometimes the most loving thing I have done is receive it.

Neither one feels great in the moment.

Both have produced growth.

The Promise

Then Paul gives the promise in Ephesians 4:15-16.

We will grow.

Not might.

Will.

Growth happens for the speaker and the listener.

Growth happens for the husband and the wife.

Growth happens for the friend who lovingly confronts and the friend who humbly receives.

Growth happens because formation leads to function.

God is not interested in winning arguments.

He is interested in forming people who look like Christ.

That is why speaking the truth in love is not a suggestion.

It is a command.

And commands always have a purpose attached to them.

You will never fully embrace God’s way until your heart is gripped by God’s why.

The why is growth.

The why is maturity.

The why is becoming more like Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

That verse convicted me.

Because sometimes we use silence as a virtue when it is actually avoidance.

There is a time to be quiet.

There is also a time to have the talk.

The conversation you’ve been putting off.

The apology you’ve been delaying.

The financial discussion you’ve been avoiding.

The boundary you’ve been afraid to set.

The truth you’ve been afraid to say.

The issue you’ve been pretending doesn’t exist.

The cost of the conversation may feel high.

Yet the cost of avoiding it is often higher.

I used to think hard conversations were evidence that something was wrong.

Now I see them differently.

Many of them have been evidence that God was trying to grow me.

Even today, my husband and I still have those conversations. Some of them still make me squirm a little. I still occasionally walk through Target and suddenly discover seventeen things I didn’t know I needed.

Growth has not made the conversations effortless.

It has made them fruitful.

And maybe that is the point.

Spiritual maturity is not becoming comfortable with hard conversations.

It is becoming willing to have them because you trust what God is producing on the other side.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is have the talk. And sometimes the most mature thing we can do is listen when someone else does.