always show love if you can
In prayer resist the devil, always remembering to be kind
to those who are unconsciously his tools at the moment. Isobel
Kuhn
I don’t know why this hit me so profoundly this morning when I read it aloud, but it did. When I feel there is injustice against me, my knee-jerk reaction is to fight back, ask questions later. The regret comes later, too. Rarely is kindness considered in my response.
“Always show love, if you can.” Someone said it to me, and I say it to my people all the time. They wrong each other constantly and look to me for deliberation. Often, it’s difficult to decipher who instigated the fight, and who is telling the truth, but it’s easy to see who is showing love and who is not. We live in an unfair world with a plethora of personalities and devastating life situations. You never know why someone is behaving the way they are, especially when there is injustice aimed at you.
I served as a juror for a few days in a terrible trial. Without giving away a lot of detail, there were crimes committed against a child. The perpetrator was in the courtroom as questions were asked of each juror. I wanted crawl under my chair or become invisible somehow, not knowing how to answer the question with him sitting right there: “If you were told that this man was raised by severely abuse and negligent parents, would it impact your decision in his sentencing?” Ugh… but the child, but also this man...
Always show love if you can.
The Lords bondservants must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged… 2 Timothy 2:24
I don’t know why this hit me so profoundly this morning when I read it aloud, but it did. When I feel there is injustice against me, my knee-jerk reaction is to fight back, ask questions later. The regret comes later, too. Rarely is kindness considered in my response.
“Always show love, if you can.” Someone said it to me, and I say it to my people all the time. They wrong each other constantly and look to me for deliberation. Often, it’s difficult to decipher who instigated the fight, and who is telling the truth, but it’s easy to see who is showing love and who is not. We live in an unfair world with a plethora of personalities and devastating life situations. You never know why someone is behaving the way they are, especially when there is injustice aimed at you.
I served as a juror for a few days in a terrible trial. Without giving away a lot of detail, there were crimes committed against a child. The perpetrator was in the courtroom as questions were asked of each juror. I wanted crawl under my chair or become invisible somehow, not knowing how to answer the question with him sitting right there: “If you were told that this man was raised by severely abuse and negligent parents, would it impact your decision in his sentencing?” Ugh… but the child, but also this man...
Always show love if you can.
The Lords bondservants must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged… 2 Timothy 2:24
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