How to Tell When You’re at an Extreme and How to Escape It

None of us want them, but we all have them. Extreme positions, points-of-view, opinions, even behaviors that harm us and everyone around us. Often we grew up with them, so they are all we know. We think they’re normal, and so we don’t even question them. But they aren’t healthy.

The problem is, since we grew up with them, we often can’t even see our own extremes. We implicitly take them for granted. So how can we recognize when we’re at an extreme? Extremes reveal themselves by what we’re offended by.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Some things are worth being offended by. But, if we’re trying to be like Jesus, we don’t get to decide what those things are. He does. We should be offended by what he’s offended by, and nothing else.

What Is God Offended By?

Jesus is offended by unrighteous actions, not by unrighteous people. Many people have suffered terrible trauma. Hurt people hurt people. That doesn’t make it right, but that’s the fallen, unsafe world we live in. While, yes, sin is offensive to God, sinners are not. He loves them.

Jesus loves people but hates unrighteous actions (i.e., sin).

Unfortunately, too often today many churches love sin (by not calling it sin) in the name of loving people. But it’s actually unloving not to call out behavior that’s actually hurting people, like sex outside of marriage or LGBTQ. 

On the other hand, some churches actually hate people in the name of upholding righteousness. It’s not love to treat unrighteous people unrighteously. For example, God does not hate homosexuals. God loves homosexuals. He hates homosexuality, just like he hates adultery and cheating on taxes–the sinful lifestyles. But God loves homosexuals, adulterers, and thieves. There’s an eternity of difference between loving the person and hating the sinful lifestyle.

Jesus loved the people while making no excuses for their sin. One of my favorites stories is when he saved a woman caught in adultery that an angry mob was going to stone. (Where was the guy, BTW?) After he dispersed the crowd, he told her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” (See John 8:1-11.)

The point is that in a disagreement between our opinion and Jesus, we need to lose every time.

How to Tell if You’re at an Extreme with 2 Questions

Two questions reveal if we’re at an extreme, if we answer them honestly. Remember our own extremes are hard to see. The very nature of deception is you don’t know you’re deceived. This makes it hard to see in yourself. But these 2 questions are a great litmus test.

Question 1: What am I offended by? It’s good to recognize when we’re offended. When we’re angry or hurt over something, ask yourself, Am I offended? It’s a good first question to try and sort out what we’re feeling. If yes, we determine we are offended, move on to question 2.

Question 2: Is God offended by this? This is a dangerous question to answer honestly, because it reveals where we need to change. But that’s ok. Lovers of Jesus ask dangerous questions. If God’s not offended by what we’re offended by, we need to repent and change.

For example, we shouldn’t be offended by someone else’s music styles. If they’re worshipping in spirit and truth, God doesn’t care if it’s an old hymn, 1950s gospel, contemporary worship, or hip-hop. 

Another example: We should be offended by music lyrics, novels, movies, or TV shows that portray sex outside of marriage as a good thing, when actually it breaks the heart of God. We need to stop listening, reading, and watching this stuff.

How to Escape an Extreme in 2 Steps

So once we’ve identified we’re in an extreme, how do we get out? By repentance in 2 simple, but not easy, steps. Repentance means we change and don’t do it anymore. Attitudes are hard to change because they’re often an unconscious habit. Repentance is a process and it’ll take some time to turn around. But if you don’t give up, you win.

1) Confess it. Admit our extreme attitude to God as the sin that it is, without excuses. Sometimes, at the point of confession, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t want to change. It’s ok to wrestle with God and slug it out. He can take it. Even if we don’t want to change, we can want to want to change. That’s ok, God can work with that.

2) Take a baby step toward the other extreme. Often, we’re at our extreme because we absolutely hate the other extreme. For example, maybe neat-freaks hate the disorganization of messiness, while messy people hate the rigidity of the neat-freaks. Both extremes are bad. But we justify our extreme by looking at the other one. 

To get out of an extreme, you have to take a step toward the other extreme. Now I’m not saying go to the other extreme, but if you’re going to find the balance in the middle, you have to move in that direction. 

To continue the above example, our neat-freaks need to learn it’s ok if something minor is left out-of-place and let it go. Meanwhile, the messy people need to put things back when they’re done with them. This is a silly example, but you get the idea.

So take a deep breath and take a step toward the other extreme. The world won’t come to an end. And Jesus will meet you there in the balance.

How about you?

Have you been at an extreme? How did you get out? Did you realize what you hated wasn’t so bad after all? Tell us our story in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.