800 pound gorilla in the room

I correct and discipline everyone I love (Revelation 3:19).

Imagine that you’ve been invited to a fancy party. After getting rid of your coat and picking up a drink, you start to mingle with the other guests, when suddenly you see something very odd. Sitting in the corner of the room is an 800-pound gorilla! The big hairy ape isn’t doing anything except looking around and occasionally scratching himself. Amazingly, no one at the party acknowledges that it is there in the room with them. When you point towards the gorilla and open your mouth to ask about it, everyone suddenly looks nervous and many shake their heads, warning you to keep silent. The host takes you by the arm and leads you outside, then whispers: "Don’t do anything to stir up trouble. Just ignore it and hopefully things will be fine." Throughout the entire evening, no one speaks about the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

We’ve all seen such a gorilla at one time or another. At a family reunion, Uncle Bill gets drunk like usual, but everyone ignores him. At church during the sermon, the Jensen kids crawl under the pews and run down the aisle like they always do, but no one spares them a single glance. At the office, everyone quietly covers for Linda during the long breaks she often takes with the boss in private. There is an 800-pound gorilla in the room, but everyone ignores it because they are afraid of provoking an angry response. They don’t want to make a big, hairy problem even worse by confronting it.

Most of us don’t like confrontation. We don’t want to provoke a fight that we might lose. We don’t want to become the center of gossip because of something we said or did. We don’t want to make others feel bad. We don’t want to risk losing a friend. The trouble is, if you ignore the gorilla, he’ll just make himself comfortable where he is and slowly put on weight. The longer you ignore him, the bigger a problem he’s going to become. Some gorillas become so big that people leave their jobs, their families or their churches in order to get away. The 800-pound gorilla steals their life right out from under them.

Jesus never ignored big, hairy problems; He always dealt with them head-on. This often resulted in the Lord being unpopular, but He knew that sin must be confronted so that good things can follow. Forgiveness is a wonderful blessing, but it cannot be appreciated without acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Pointing out sin is uncomfortable, but it is essential for everyone’s well being.