😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you. One of the challenges to parenting is after you offer your wisdom and experience, you allow your children the freedom to make their own choices and suffer the consequences of their typically self- centered, unwise decisions and actions. That was me last week. So, my kids are probably trying to figure out who did what, but it was me. I was the unwise child acting in my own self-centeredness. That event happened at the end of the workday last Thursday and then I had four days off. And that’s when God the Father leaned in a bit harder on the parenting side of our relationship. The scripture He kept replaying those four days was Matthew 18: 15-17. “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” Me in my oh so incredible wisdom allowed my frustrations with a situation to build up to the boiling point. What made it worse was that I skipped steps 1 and 2, as instructed in the scripture, and went right to letting the whole church know. Honestly, I hope I’m the only person this has happened to, but I’m guessing some of you may have skipped a few steps along the way also. First, I would not want to be treated that way. Second, taking that approach doesn’t solve anything. Third, humility and apologies are necessary follow-ups, whether you choose to or not. Regardless of whether we feel that we’re in the right or not, there is a reason for God’s three step approach to challenging situations and people interactions. Yes, it’s about protecting the other person, but a big part of it is about protecting us from ourselves. Our Father is guiding us to be the best that we can be for ourselves and more importantly for Him. Lord, I pray that I listen to Your wisdom and guiding words sooner, so that I don’t work myself to the boiling point again. Let me be a better example of Your love and grace. Bless others and be blessed.
#ThomasRhett – Be A Light
Third Day Devotions 