Do you struggle with speaking the truth in love in your relationships? If you answered yes, this biblical truth and tip will help you. One of the major pitfalls to avoid is allowing yourself to be easily invalidated by the other person's defensiveness, abuse, arguments, disagreement, denial, and opinions.

It isn't always easy to speak your truth and it is even harder to maintain your truth when people attempt to invalidate it. They do this by accusing you of lying, manipulation, control, and twisting the truth. They tell you that your perceptions, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and opinions are wrong. They disagree strongly and rudely, refusing to accept that you can hold a view different than their own.

Just because someone says it, doesn't make it so. Learn to validate yourself by believing what you feel, perceive, and think. Consider your opinions and perceptions to be just as important as someone else's. Keep in mind that people will try to make you doubt yourself for their own selfish ends. Abusive people keep you under their control by making you question yourself to keep you off balance. Defensive people avoid dealing with the truth about themselves by turning the problem back onto you. Difficult people don't want to deal with truth and they will expend lots of energy to avoid doing it.

James describes the person who is easily invalidated: "But when he asks [speaks], he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does" (James 1:6-8, NIV). When you allow others to make you doubt yourself, you bring instability to your life and relationships. Instead, when speaking your truth in love, don't let your truth be invalidated.

Author's Bio: 

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Karla Downing is an author, speaker, licensed marriage and family therapist, and Bible study teacher. Karla's passion is to help people find freedom in Christ in the midst of their difficult relationships and circumstances through Biblical truths and practical tools.