Extra Grace Required
when we deal with them. Perhaps they talk too much, or they always interrupt when you're busy, or their requests sound too much like demands. They may have only one topic to discuss: their children, or football, or the stock market, or their diet—whatever you’re not all that interested in. Or they ask about your children and team and investments and diet—things you don't really want to discuss. Maybe they always want a ride somewhere, or they have an annoying habit of pencil-tapping, or they snap the gum they're chewing. You get the idea. Unless you are a hermit and never see another person, you know just who in your life I am talking about. [What a strange picture that brings to my mind! A hermit in a cave who has a computer and reads blogs!]
With our advanced technologies, many photos are retouched so that people and places are not exactly as they appear. We'd be surprised, I'm sure, if we were to meet some celebrities or personally visit some scenes; they would be so different! In day-to-day contact all the "warts" of our fellow-humans' personalization are clearly visible.
Extra Grace Required
to get along with them!
Most of the references to grace in the New Testament are to the grace of God, the grace of Christ Jesus, and the Spirit of grace. A few places remind us that we also are to extend grace. "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold [varied, many-sided] grace of God." (Ephesians 4:29; I Peter 4:6 NASB)
Certainly, when Christ called each of us to follow Him, there was
Extra Grace Required
that had already been freely given! Let's pass it on!
MaryMartha
Scripture is from the New American Standard Bible, used by permission of The Lockman Foundation, www.lockman.org
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