Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday April 21, 2010

Due to my being in possession of mean streak about wide as me, I tend to search out sayings, scriptures and other material to help soften this trait. Today's statement fits my need to have a little mercy to the tee. A man acquainted with the meanness of others and perhaps battling a response in kind, George Washington Carver wrote:

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."

Carver's statement is right on target concerning the true nature of our self. Being "Kind to our web footed friends" as the children used to sing as words to "The Stars and Stripes Forever" carried the idea that each of us is in some way, "Web Footed" meaning we are out of place, not really suited for the event at hand. Thus we should and can be kind to others in the same boat, but perhaps a different river.

James comment on this in James 1:23-24:

"For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was."

Here we have the scriptures becoming the revealer of who we really are and taking away any pretence if we accept the mirror as correct. James points out that we soon forget or more accurately deny to our self the truth about our self as presented by the mirror.

Thus God uses another revealer, one that we either are not aware of or another of God's methods that we deny. The principle is this: When we see a weakness in others we can accept the person with their weakness, we can be appalled at their weakness or we can recognize that while we seem to be strong in that particular area of life, we are weak in others and if the truth be known we are terrified that we too, suffer the same weakness, but have learned to cover it with subterfuge of some kind.

According to the Bible we can and should through Christ overcome our weakness and our strength and in grace and mercy bless others along the way.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2010 Use with credit

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