Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday May 15, 2007

I came across an old quote in preparation for Mother's Day and decided I could not fit it into the sermon structure so I saved it for you my dear daily readers. It has nothing to do with Mother's Day and yet everything a person should learn from lying near the heart of Mother, resting little soft head and brain to hear the thunder of her pumping heart.

The heartbeat of Mother would teach us two things about our conduct in life, how to respond to the trouble our loved ones and friends will meet along the journey and how to look ours in the eye and please the Lord.

The author of this tiny piece is unknown to me, but I hope he/she practices the grand wisdom in the lines.

"Two things stand like stone-- Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in our own.

Easy to write. Easy to think about. Try it.

I recently sat in a courtroom, I spend a lot of time in these morbid settings, I was praying for the accused to get a break. What I meant as act of kindness was taken as being there to gloat! Such is life. Just how do you communicate kindness in another's trouble?

Over the years I have found this to be a common misconception. I really don't know how to find the right way to let folks know, "Hey, I am for you and so is God." To be for someone in sympathy does not necessarily mean that you do not think they should be in the room of "justice." When the gavel of justice comes down, and with the rap you now have one, there must be a time of ruminating, of really thinking through the reasons for standing in that forbidding spot. Introspection is a good word. Am I guilty? If so, all the blame placing in the entire world will not change the root cause of your being there. Am I innocent? In too many cases the truth is yes. In this case you have to give this event to God and go on, remembering those souls in the Bible and history who have stood as condemned innocents. If you stand in such a spot as a Christian, you can take heart in the fact that this miscarriage could not be happening unless it crossed God's desk first and has His stamp of permission. Job knew this in His time of trouble as did John Bunyan in the Bedford Jail. Great comfort came with this knowledge.

As to gloating in the troubles of another the scripture does address this common practice and I am appalled at the mean spirited Christian's who ignore the plain command,

"Rejoiceth not in iniquity;" 1Cor 13:6, Abbott writes, "does not take a malignant pleasure in the faults and sins of others." You will be surprised at how easy it is to fall into this trap. Albert Barnes wrote about ¾ of a page on the phrase. Be kind to others, even if they are wrong in their time of trouble.

Having courage in your own troubles is the trait that sets you apart from the Whiner family and inspires other to keep on struggling to climb the mountain in their own life.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.

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