Altamira, 1997. We were young missionaries, new to almost everything, learning right alongside the people we served.
A Living Room in Altamira
It was a hot, humid night in Altamira, deep in the Amazon.
Outside, it was pitch black, the kind of darkness you only find in the jungle at night.
Inside, about eight young couples were squished into a dimly lit living room. These were the early days, and the electricity was poor. Everyone was sweating. We took turns supervising the kids in the next room while the rest of us learned how to really talk to one another.
We were young missionaries, and marriage counseling was new to all of us.
We were trying to help one another learn to speak honestly and work through disagreement without attacking or withdrawing. We were learning too, and we knew we were highly visible. Our examples, for better or worse, would trickle down through the church leaders and their congregations.
We expected the couples who argued most to struggle. They had been hesitant to come at all. The harmonious couples arrived confident.
Then something surprising happened.
Some of the couples who regularly disagreed began slowing down. They listened. They heard each other. Their arguments became less reactive, and they started finding their way toward peace.
And some of the couples who had arrived so confident came back and said they were arguing now.
At first, that felt like failure.
It wasn’t. Once both people had permission to speak honestly, some discovered their quiet hadn’t been peace. One of them had simply stopped speaking.
Starting to speak again took courage. So did learning to listen. Those couples stayed in the room.
Those early years of learning alongside these couples remain some of the highlights of our whole missionary life. Almost thirty years later, we’re still in contact, and so grateful for them.
Different on Purpose
That night sends me back to the opening pages of the Bible.
In Genesis 2, God looks at something for the first time and says:
“It is not good.”
Not good?
A human alone.
So God doesn’t make a duplicate. He makes a genuine other. Tim Mackie of BibleProject calls her a “help-counterpart.” Without her, the lone human can’t fulfill the calling God gave humanity.
The goal was never sameness. It was unity between genuine others.
A healthy marriage is not two people who never disagree.
Neither is a healthy church. Or family. Or mission team.
Sometimes honest disagreement is where real unity begins.
The Psalm at the Farewell Supper
Imagine you’re moving overseas and won’t be back for years. You gather your closest friends for one last meal. Good food. A private room. Just you and the people you love most.
Jesus was in a room like that, hours before he left. At that farewell supper, he quoted Psalm 41.
It’s the last song in the first book of Psalms, and it opens with a blessing:
“Blessed is one who considers the helpless.”
“Considers” means paying wise, careful attention. “Helpless” can mean poor, weak, or sick.
Power tends to notice power. God keeps noticing the person everyone else stopped seeing.
David says the Lord protects that kind of person, keeps them alive, and sustains them when they’re sick.
Then the psalm turns.
Now David is the one who is down. And the people who visit him are not paying that kind of attention.
Friendly Faces, Whispering Hearts
David knows he isn’t innocent:
“LORD, be gracious to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
Then the visitors come. Their words sound pleasant, but something is off. Their hearts are gathering wickedness. Afterward, they step outside and talk. The whispering spreads. Their question is grim: When will he die, and his name perish?
Worst of all:
“Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.”
That’s the line Jesus quoted at the supper, with Judas sitting at the table (John 13:18).
If you’ve been betrayed by a person or group you trusted, you know that pain.
Anxiety Has Many Disguises
Anxiety doesn’t always look anxious.
Sometimes it gets loud. Sometimes it goes silent. Sometimes one person takes over while another gives up. Sometimes we talk about someone instead of to them, gathering supporters to our side.
Most of us learned these patterns long before we knew we were learning them.
Edwin Friedman, building on Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, noticed that when one person in a group starts acting differently, the group often pushes back. I spent two years studying Bowen theory, and I’ve seen it in families, churches, and mission teams.
David’s room is full of that kind of anxiety. People whisper. They gather. They predict his collapse. We see the same thing in the Gospels. Some religious leaders came to Jesus with flattering words while they were trying to trap him (Luke 20:20–21).
But notice where David starts. Not with everyone else’s sin. With his own:
“I have sinned.”
He doesn’t carry their part. He names what they’re doing and asks God to protect him.
Their response is not mine to control. My part is mine to own.
Henry Loewen, an Alberta rancher, has been my friend and mentor since I left home in 1978. He taught me to go to God’s Word daily, read a portion, and let it form my character.
“That I May Repay Them”
There’s one line in Psalm 41 I can’t skip.
David prays, “Raise me up, that I may repay them.”
We don’t know exactly what David meant. It may have been a king asking God to restore justice. It may have been a wounded man who wanted to even the score.
But I know what that line sounds like when I pray it.
When people whisper against us, everything in us wants to pay them back. Especially when we’ve been trying our hardest. Especially when it feels undeserved, or only partly deserved. And we’re often blind to our own part in the conflict. It’s easy to slide from hurt into bitterness.
But the Bible shows us another way.
Long before David, God said that repaying belongs to him (Deuteronomy 32:35). The Hebrew word is the same one David uses. Paul quotes God’s words, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” and then draws a surprising conclusion: if your enemy is hungry, feed him (Romans 12:19–20).
Jesus put it plainly: “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44).
Then he lived it.
At the supper, Jesus knew who would lift his heel against him. He washed Judas’s feet anyway, even the heel that would be lifted against him. He handed him bread. And when Judas came with a kiss to hand him over, Jesus called him “Friend” (Matthew 26:50).
And after God raised him up, Jesus came back into a locked room full of friends who had run away.
He didn’t repay them. He said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)
Altamira, around 1998. Staying in the room rarely looks heroic. Most of the time, it looks like pulling up a chair.
Staying in the Room
I still think about those hot, crowded evenings in our living room in Altamira. The couples who had been arguing had to slow down and listen. The ones who had gone quiet had to start speaking. Both were learning the same thing: how to stay in the room.
So what does that look like for you this week, wherever you might live?
Maybe it’s a coworker who talks about you behind your back. A church member who smiles on Sunday and whispers on Monday. A spouse who has gone quiet. A neighbour who never says thank you.
Staying in the room means you listen seriously. You speak truthfully when it’s yours to speak. You own your sin without carrying theirs.
Refuse domination. Refuse disappearance. Leave the repaying to God. And love them anyway.
Psalm 41 ends:
“You uphold me in my integrity, And You set me in Your presence forever.”
Then the first book of Psalms closes on a majestic note:
“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”
Forty-one psalms of fear, enemies, failure, confession, betrayal, and deliverance. And the last word belongs to God.
Thirty-five years into marriage, Deanna and I still have moments when it feels awkward to show up and talk through our differences. We’re always glad when we’ve found our way through. Next week, Portugal. More in the P.S.
One step this week: Think of one person who has been unloving toward you. Pray for them by name every day, and do one kind thing for them.
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A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You sat at the table with the friend who would betray You. You knelt and washed his feet.
Be gracious to me. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.
When people whisper against me, keep me from whispering back.
When I want to repay, teach me to bless.
Let me see the people who hurt me the way You see them, and pray for them as You prayed for those who hurt You.
When I want to take over the room, quiet me. When I want to walk out of it, steady me.
Help me own my part and leave the rest with You.
Uphold me in integrity, and set me in Your presence forever.
Amen and Amen.
With gratitude,
Rick and Deanna
P.S. Next week we travel to Portugal with a small team from Brazil on another exploration trip. We want to understand how we might encourage younger couples there to start a church planting movement. Would you please pray for us as we listen and learn?
P.P.S. In the next issue, we open Book Two of the Psalms. It begins with a thirsty deer.
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Scripture quotations are from the NASB 2020 unless otherwise noted.
