Jan 3

No cursing or name calling involved, but  as each next word rolled off my tongue in defense of my injustice I felt worse and worse.  Outpouring from my  heart I heard the sting of my own voice:  bitterness and anger  were talking.  And it wasn’t even directed at me, I’m the innocent one- the broken-back camel crippled under my offender’s pile of straw. Can you relate?  You put up with something on fast repeat and before you know it you’re slinging anger around like glitter in a snow globe.  To make it worse?  My Bible was open and I was reading today’s verse: Be ye kind one to another. 

Even with his helpers all around the earth, the devil  isn’t omnipresent.  However,  he knows our hot buttons, doesn’t he? Just when the Lord wanted to prepare me to yield my heart to kindness, forgiveness and a tenderness, BAM, easy-button triggered, and my personal brouhaha ignited.  

Strangely, I’m now thankful it happened. Until then I mistakenly thought  Ephesians 4:32 was the stand alone verse for the day, when in reality it can’t be.  I simply can’t employ God’s instructions: be ye kind… apart from the previous verse being true in my life. 

  Eph 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. 

Until I allow all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking, (aka my personal brouhaha) to be put away from me, I can’t attain to the and which follows. And neither can you. There is a reason for this order. God says to first put away:  bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, (no matter how well we are wronged).    We can’t hold on to  anything the Lord says to put away,  but especially let’s not miss the extent to which they need to go. All, bye-bye brouhaha. All must go. Then, the Lord can change the tone of our words straight from the heart to His own: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.  I hear your defenses, but it doesn’t matter.  If anyone was ever wrongly treated, it was Jesus.  And guess what? God isn’t asking us to do something He hasn’t done for every Believer.  We seek to change our hearts to be more like His, and we forgive, Dear Friend-no matter what-because He has forgiven us. 

Dear Lord, It doesn’t feel good, at least for long, to defend myself in any of these ways, please forgive me for my unkindness in words and actions. Keep my heart clean of any  brouhaha there’s a great peace to know I can  put each and ALL of them away from me and can be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving just as You through Jesus Christ has forgiven me. I sure don’t deserve it, yet you so lovingly forgive me.