Ephesians 4:2
Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other.
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
Our cat Lucy has this little routine she goes through almost every night. She eats her dinner then wanders down the hallway toward our bedroom. She sits and cries outside the bathroom doorway. She doesn’t want anything… I’ve checked. She is merely “announcing” that she is getting a drink from the water bowl we keep there for her. I’ll admit…it’s annoying sometimes. She can really get loud and persistent! But we love her so much, so we put up with the little quirks of hers and her sister Mabel’s.
In return, our cats forgive us when we let the food bowl sit empty for a while. They love us even when we don’t cater to their every whim… or when they think we don’t pay enough attention to them. And they actually remain pretty humble and gentle about it… although from time to time, they do give us a declawed swipe to say “Hey, YOU! Notice me!”
Sometimes we have a hard time tolerating the behaviors of our two-legged friends. We forget that they might also have trouble putting up with our faults. And yes… we do have our own imperfections! We get so busy pointing out the other guy’s defects that others might actually have a hard time believing we really love them!
Criticism is easy… loving someone “warts and all” is the hard part! But the role of a Christian is to love others as Jesus loves us… and that means we are going to have to sometimes bite our tongue and patiently overlook a few things. I’m not saying we can’t gently make suggestions when we see someone we love take what we consider to be a wrong turn. But more than a few of us offer advice and suggestions where none were solicited… or we gripe and complain about things that really don’t (or shouldn’t) matter all that much between good friends.
We need to take this passage to heart… and examine our own motives and behaviors. Where do we need to be more humble, gentle and patient? Where could we be more tolerant of another person’s opinions, style, or idiosyncrasies? How can we be more like Jesus in our daily living? Isn’t it time we began?
©2012 Debbie Robus
No comments:
Post a Comment