Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Back in the day, when I taught youth Sunday School and our curriculum was a six-year tour through the Bible, I found Zechariah to be one of the most difficult books to teach. There are true gems in there, but to comprehensively cover all the visions in such a way as to make sense to teenagers was a real challenge.
The passage that jumped out at me today is something of a challenge...to everyone:
This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.' - Zech.7: 9 -10
Study on that awhile. Each aspect of it. There's an incredible amount of instruction in that little bit of Scripture; not the least to monitor our thoughts.
Do not think evil of each other.... that really is pretty profound. That means that I'm not to think the guy who cut me off in traffic with horn blaring as if it were MY fault is a jerk; I'm not to look at folks on the other side of the political spectrum as folks acting under deliberate wicked intentions (Misguided, ill-advised, illogical, maybe ;-) );basically, I'm not to assume the worst about any other individual for whatever reason.
That's hard. Really hard. 'Cause, you know, I probably would never plan to tell someone else my bad opinion of a third party...but I sure would think it every time that third party ticked me off. And then I'd be surprised when it actually came out of my mouth someday...possibly to the wrong person, who could not be trusted to keep said bad opinion to him/herself and so the yuck grows.
But...mercy and compassion will keep that judgmental stuff from getting rooted in my spirit...and if it's not in my spirit, it won't come out of my mouth when I accidentally, momentarily drop the guard.
No comments:
Post a Comment