The Sound and the Fury (Friday Devotional)

 

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

- Colossians 3:13

Every morning, Lindsey and I have expectations for the kids before they go to school. They need to make their beds. They need to get themselves dressed. They need to practice piano. They need to eat breakfast. And they need to brush their teeth.

As for me and Lindsey, we also have things to do. We have to get dressed, make our bed, and brush our teeth too. She makes the kids’ breakfast, I get their backpacks ready to go, one of us changes the baby’s diaper, and I do whatever kitchen cleanup is needed.

All of these jobs have to be completed in an hour—between 6:30 AM, when I rouse everybody out of bed, and 7:30, when everybody loads into the car for school. On a good morning, when everybody wakes up cheerful and ready to move, that’s more than enough time.

That being said, there are five of us—the odds of everybody waking up perky on the same day are slim.

So what we wind up with most mornings, frankly, is a lot of yelling. Me yelling because Andrew is bouncing a basketball instead of playing piano. Lindsey yelling because Katherine’s been at the breakfast table for 20 minutes and she still hasn’t taken her second bite of eggs. Isaac yelling because he’s a baby. Lots and lots of yelling.

It’s not ideal, and it means the day starts with a dark cloud over it. But 95% of the time—whether on the way out the door, on the drive to school, or at dinner that night—something happens that brings a little light. Me and Lindsey take a breath and apologize to the kids for losing our tempers and ask them to forgive us. The kids say it’s ok and admit they weren’t being as good of listeners as they could have been either. And we all say ‘I love you.’

Repentance. Forgiveness. Reconciliation.

We understand how this works between ourselves and God; it’s a foundational doctrine of our faith—if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our relationship with God is built upon the knowledge that we are sinners in need of his grace.

But what we are slower to acknowledge is that we need to live out that same process in our relationships with our fellow human beings, from our family members to our friends to our neighbors. Being in a relationship with someone means bearing with their faults and forgiving when there is grievance. It means showing a fraction of the grace you were shown on the cross.

Everybody has a bad day occasionally But when those bad days come—whether you’re the one doing the yelling or you’re the one getting yelled at—let grace be your guide toward reconciliation.