Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
Galatians 6:1-3
So I wonder, How much pain, anger, frustration, sadness, and hopelessness do we cause ourselves because we are unwilling to allow people to have their imperfections. We fight to make people part of our tribe. We do not help and we actually cause ourselves more pain and confusion because we are not helping those who need us. When we are unable to let go of our need to be “right” and allow God to work in their lives as God sees fit. When we have to be right we are far from perfection ourselves. We are angry, upset, sad, frustrated. This is far from the perfection of love, beauty, hope, compassion, abundance, and kindness set for our by Jesus. In our refusal to let go and allow imperfections to be a part of ourselves and others, we are actually causing ourselves and others more pain. We are forgoing any peace and joy that is being offered to us by God.
Imagine if we could let go and allow other people to be the imperfect people they are how much better we would feel, they would feel, and the world would feel. Imagine a world where you just give away kindness, love, hope, joy, peace, and life. Imagine how your day would go if you could just give up the frustrations with others imperfections. No more worries about how someone is driving in the traffic. No more frustrations at the person who you think should be thanking you for something. No more anger at your spouse for not remembering what you thought they should remember. No more sadness that your child has not followed all directions and made a mistake. No more worry when a person in front of you in a line takes longer than you want because they cannot find something. It is all imperfection. Our imperfections bother other people around us and we are never aware. They stand behind us in line and get frustrated. They drive behind us in traffic and wish we would go faster. They wished we would have heard the directions and followed them. They wished we would have thanked them for something. We need to realize that we are all cookie thieves. I have put this here before but I need the reminder today:
A woman was waiting at the airport one night, With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shop, Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,
That the man beside her, as bold as could be, Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between, Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene
She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,
As the gustly "cookie thief" diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye!"
With each cookie she took, he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what he'd do.
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, He took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, and he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, "Oh brother, This guy has some nerve, and he's also so rude, Why, he didn't even show any gratitude!"
She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,
Refusing to look at the "thieving ingrate".
She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, Then sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise.
There were her bag of cookies in front of her eyes! "If mine are here," she moaned with despair. "Then the others were his and he tried to share!"
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!!!!
Today remember not to be the cookie thief. We all have imperfections.
Namaste'
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment