Move the Sun (Friday Devotional)

 

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

- Colossians 3:12-13

On Monday, Lindsey and the kids spent all morning going to a pair of doctor appointments. Both kids did well, but by the end they were tired and getting cranky. So when they were driving home and the sun shone through the window into Andrew’s eyes, his reaction was to yell out, “Mommy! I need you to move the sun!”

Lindsey chuckled and replied, “Buddy, that’s not something Mommy can do.”

But Andrew was unmoved. “You can!” he insisted. “I know you can!”

In this pandemic season of renewed fears, fresh anxieties, and continued fatigue, a lot of us feel just like Andrew. We’re tired. We’re frustrated. We want things to be different.

And so, just like him, our expectations of each other start to become unreasonable. We need more than ever, so we demand more than ever. We feel blinded, and so we want our friends, our families, and our leaders to move the sun.

Difficult times are nothing new for disciples of Jesus Christ, and so Scripture offers us a reminder for how gospel-minded people navigate these times: with patience, forgiveness, and grace. The apostle Paul urges the church to “clothes yourselves” with the same kind of compassionate love that Christ shows, to put on a mindset of mercy even when your flesh pushes you toward contempt.

Now more than ever, showing kindness instead of contempt is a countercultural witness to the love of Jesus Christ. When you practice forgiveness in the face of frustration, you are living out the gospel. So when you want to demand that somebody else move the sun, may you instead move toward the Son.