On my last blog I talked about the need we all have for hope. I spoke about an experience I had that helped shape some of my thoughts about how to share the love of Christ by ministering Grace to others. The passage below helped me shape my thoughts during this experience and I want to share this experience with you.
Lamentations 3:19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. 20 Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. 21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. 22 The LORD'S loving kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. 26 It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD.
I am really struggling with how to relate this story and not lose the significance of the principle. There is a whole heart attitude in this that effects the way we even think about the people around us. As I suggest in the title, we must become more like Christ if we are to call ourselves Christian at all. In the very heart attitudes we carry around (even the ones no one ever sees overtly displayed) we must genuinely adopt the Love of Christ and seek to live it out towards others on more than just a surface level.
The problem I had with the child who is at the center of this story, is that I didn't like him. I could pretend to like him, even love him, but it wasn't in my heart to do it. I began to realize that this child was exposing something seriously flawed in me. I could not extend grace to someone I didn't like. As adults we tend to accept this kind of attitude in ourselves toward those who have offended or angered us. We don't really see it as a problem, even though Jesus did.
Jesus explains the problem of this lack of forgiveness in the story of the king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves in Matthew 18:23-35. We find a slave forgiven a great debt who does not honor the king who forgave him by showing the same forgiveness to others. This is a big deal and it is this same characteristic of God that Lamentations describes and Jesus calls us to emulate. If it wasn't for God's willingness to show me new mercy every day, how could I stand before Him? But do I honor God by showing new mercy every day to others?
As regards to the child in question, in my defense, showing grace like that is very difficult to do, humanly speaking. This child was only a 4 year old but he was a problem. He was difficult for every teacher he had. This young man was not only hard to deal with he was disruptive to the class and impossible to ignore. He would not listen to your instructions, and he created circumstances that routinely forced the other teachers and myself to seek the parents and ask them to take him out.
The problem I had with the child who is at the center of this story, is that I didn't like him. I could pretend to like him, even love him, but it wasn't in my heart to do it. I began to realize that this child was exposing something seriously flawed in me. I could not extend grace to someone I didn't like. As adults we tend to accept this kind of attitude in ourselves toward those who have offended or angered us. We don't really see it as a problem, even though Jesus did.
Jesus explains the problem of this lack of forgiveness in the story of the king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves in Matthew 18:23-35. We find a slave forgiven a great debt who does not honor the king who forgave him by showing the same forgiveness to others. This is a big deal and it is this same characteristic of God that Lamentations describes and Jesus calls us to emulate. If it wasn't for God's willingness to show me new mercy every day, how could I stand before Him? But do I honor God by showing new mercy every day to others?
As regards to the child in question, in my defense, showing grace like that is very difficult to do, humanly speaking. This child was only a 4 year old but he was a problem. He was difficult for every teacher he had. This young man was not only hard to deal with he was disruptive to the class and impossible to ignore. He would not listen to your instructions, and he created circumstances that routinely forced the other teachers and myself to seek the parents and ask them to take him out.
The worst part was that I found myself not just wanting to avoid the child but actually dreading having him in class. I even started to dislike him on a personal level. That was the wake up call that caused me to pull up short. I was supposed to be a Christian and an educator and this kid was a challenge but not my enemy. I began to seriously pray for an answer and seek the Lord's help with this situation.
I began to observe more and try to discover what made this child tick. He was in his own right a difficult child. There may have been some slight mental handicap or other problem that contributed to his way of doing things, but he was still just a kid, and he needed to know the Lord and be loved. Then it clicked and I finally began to see the connection. None of us were living out Lamentations by showing him new compassion, or Matthew by showing him true grace. All the teachers were anticipating trouble from him and holding last week's offences against him.
Sure enough I began to observe that teachers were saying things like, "Now, Billy, I don't want any trouble out of you today." and "Billy, I don't want to have to go get your mom today, so make sure you behave." Then they would proceed to wait for him to mess up and send him out. He didn't really have to work hard at it to get in trouble either. They were expecting his behavior to be bad and he never failed to deliver.
But more on that later...
But more on that later...
