The Crawl

I have a person that I know, they aren’t really in my life on a regular basis, but enough to bug me to no end. They are the person in my life that I find it difficult to extend grace to them. The general attitude is one of selfishness, being the center of every decision, and if others don’t like that then tough for them. This person is very direct and blunt. They come across as rude, inconsiderate and self absorbed. This person is a believer in the Lord Jesus and so there are attempts to encourage or reprove them unto holiness. Yet these are almost always met with strong resistance and in most cases a cavalier attitude toward sin. That is most frustrating because they are in leadership roles over people young in their faith, and they claim to love community and being open and honest about what they struggle with. Being authentic about our sin is good and fine if it leads us to our knees to plead with the Lord for grace and growth.

Now my beautiful gracious wife points out to me every time I file these complaints (which seems to be any time I have spent an extended period with this other person) that I am being “too harsh”. She acknowledges that my frustrations with the general attitudes of this person are well founded and good, but that I personalize them is not fair. And after I am done trying to justify myself I come to see she is right. And I don’t intend here to try and justify myself either, but to confess my own pride and self-righteousness.

This week in my home group we are going through Matthew 18. At the end of the chapter Jesus tells this parable about a servant who owes ten thousand talents to his master. But the servant begs and pleads with his master and the master completely forgives the debt. The servant then turns around and throws a man in jail for one hundred denarii. I am that servant. I , every time I grow so frustrated with this person, am trampling and presuming upon the grace and forgiveness I have been shown. At the beginning of Matthew 18 Jesus says that the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are the little ones, the children, who were the least in the society of the 1st century.

In CJ Mahaney’s little book called Humility he says that one of the primary ways to cultivate humility in your life is to intentionally notice the grace of God in other people’s life. We are to call out sin to be sure (Matthew 18:15-20) but we are to do if from a place of humility. We are to know and treasure the grace we have received and extend it to those who are in desperate need, knowing that one day the roles may well be reversed. I stink at noticing the grace in other people’s lives. I expect change immediately. Someone says you did this wrong and you should change it, end of story. But I forget or deliberately overlook the facts. Sanctification is a crawl.