Good Wednesday morning,
There are a handful of people in my life right now whom I find quite annoying. I’m also annoyed by these two yappy little dogs next door that bark every time another dog goes by. In each of these circumstances, I have good reason. The people who are bugging me have done some things that are verifiably irritating. And as for the dogs, I’m sure I’m not the only neighbor who wishes these yappy little dogs would get laryngitis. Can dogs even get laryngitis? Now that’s wishful thinking.
By last night, to those who live out of state and our communications are through e-mail only, I felt like telling them to just be quiet. Yet, the Lord made it really clear that I was not to do any such thing but to just ignore them. After all, they’re not hurting you, He said. They’re just bugging you. Read (take a chill pill, Gayle).
God allows this to happen quite often. He brings difficult people into our lives to sand down the rough edges in our personality. Oh yes, I would like to think that I am such a wonderfully sweet, reasonable person that nobody could possibly perceive me as difficult. However, after living on this planet for five decades, I imagine this is not true.
Funny, just now thought of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Snow, came into my mind. I was such a chatter box in class, my teacher decided (or maybe my mom decided, I forget), that the best remedy was that she write a note home each day to my mother informing her whether I’d been good. I wonder just how many evenings when Mrs. Snow recounted her day to her husband she threw up her hands and said, “Well, that Gayle. She’s really a sweet girl, always smiling, but she can’t sit still and she’s always talking in class. By the end of the day, she’s given me a headache.” Maybe Mrs. Snow thought I was difficult.
Anyway, you get my point.
Now about the dogs. Last night, for just a moment, I thought, how would I handle this situation if I gave no thought to consequences, no thought to the owner’s feelings, and no thought to how I was perceived by my neighbors?
That was easy.
I’d have thrown open the screen door on my balcony and screamed from the top of my lungs–using expletives that would have gotten my mouth washed out with an entire bar of soap by my mother growing up—and told the dogs to SHUT UP. Of course, they wouldn’t have known I was yelling at them. The owner would know I was really yelling at her in essence. And that would have been a very cowardly way of handling the whole situation.
I didn’t do this, aren’t you glad to know?
The Lord and I talked a bit more about the dogs this morning. And my pesky momentary nemeses. As far as the people, well, I’ve been good from the start to keep my feelings in check. Just need to keep guarding my tongue and keep my paws off the old keyboard.
And speaking of paws, the Lord said, “You don’t like your neighbor at all because of her dogs. You don’t even want to try to get to know her. You don’t like her dogs so you don’t like her.” Yikes, He had that right. God has no problem being blunt sometimes.. In all fairness to her, these are not evil dogs and they don’t bark incessantly. That really would put me over the edge since I work from my home. No, it’s mainly in the evening. Maybe they’re just tired because it’s late.
So what am I going to do about this stinky attitude of mine? Well, I already confessed it. Now I’m thinking it’s time to go over and introduce myself to my neighbor. I should have done that a month ago.
Seems to me that most of what’s involved in walking out my life as a Christian in a way that honors God and shows His love and grace to those around me is wrapped up in these every day, moment-by-moment situations. That bugs me, too, but it makes sense this is the way God would do it. Have to depend on Him more this way. The good thing is that with so many opportunities to be a good witness for Christ, even when I mess up a few in the course of a day, there’s always another one right around the corner to do the right thing.
No averages here, mind you. No earning points. No at-the-end-of-the-day tallies to report back to God about how I did. No notes home to my mother. Life from God’s perspective just doesn’t work that way. I’ll never be good enough and I’ll never do all the right things on any given day. Neither will you. Even the thought is ludicrous.
Every day, I need God’s grace and I need His mercy—with people and with dogs. Lots of other stuff, too. But what I can do this morning is this: I can resolve to be a little kinder today than I was yesterday.
Maybe I should buy the doggies a bone. And as far as the folks bugging me, I’ve started praying for them. Harder to be mad at someone when you’re praying for them, you know?
Have a great day.
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (Proverbs 12:18)