Are you a police-person? They are all around us. People watching to make sure we ‘follow the rules’. We have a particular family in our church who are super-police-people! When they show up, everyone gets a little nervous. They watch, they critique, they notice everything….and, if the littlest ‘rule’ isn’t followed – we hear about it (and so does the Bishop). It makes me wonder why they come. I don’t want to judge, or be a police-person, but are they getting anything out of it if all they do is take mental notes?
I suppose that there is something to be learned from everything and so I will try to turn my grumblings into a self-reflective question. Who (or whom) do I police? Do I ever watch something or someone with the sole purpose of finding something wrong? Sometimes I do! Especially if it is a person who I’m not particularly fond of to begin with! So, what to do, what to do…..
Celebrate the Grace! I like that phrase (just came to me) – celebrate the Grace! It’s there, you know, it’s always there, sometimes buried, sometimes bruised, but it’s there. So, instead of being the police – looking for the ‘wrong’, I will try to be the ‘detective’ and search for the Grace….
Celebrate the Grace it is! No matter what time the laborer got to the field, they got paid and with generous and lavish love. Amen to that.
Standards are necessary, but rigidity – not so much. The kind of discipline that grows out of love and the kind that grows out of control over others, are two very different things.
Amen to you post! Amen to you!
So true Fran…love your two discipline distinctions!
amen!
Thanks Diane!!!
great last line — police vs detective
Thanks Rich – yes, two very different roles!
I will remember this – because I need it! God lavishes His grace on me; surely I can celebrate His grace in others – even when I have to search for it!!
Thank you abundantly