By David ReayWednesday 1 Apr 2020LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! (NLT)
We can so often get frustrated at others because they are not as we wish them to be. This is often accompanied by frustration at ourselves given that we cannot even make ourselves the people we wish ourselves to be! It all adds up to a life of recurring disappointment with ourselves and with others.
It doesn’t lead to the sort of harmony envisaged in our text today. The only people we will meet today are imperfect just like us. The only people we will seek to love are those who may let us down or prove unlovable. If we are to be at peace with the ordinary people of our world we have to accept their imperfections as well as our own.
It is easy to fail to love people because they are not who they ought to be. But if we don’t first respect who they are right now we will never help them become who they ought to be. If we refuse to love someone till they change, we may wait a long time and deprive all parties of the fruits of accepting love.
God doesn’t wait for us to be good or attractive before loving us. He accepts us just as we are and then in that context of acceptance and grace invites us to change. He loves me just as I am, but loves me too much to simply leave me just as I am.
Blessings
David