Do unto others as you want done unto you. Seriously, how many times do we demand something of others that we are not willing to do ourselves?
It’s really easy to sit back and point out what others are doing wrong to justify our own behavior. Never mind the fact that what we are judging others on, is the very thing we are doing ourselves.
We are often reminded of this when we pray each day. Thanking God for His loving kindness that is new every morning. Recognizing that no matter how much we think we messed up the previous day; we know we can go to God. Who will meet us right where we are, and grants unto us His loving kindness willingly!
Lamentations 3:22-23(AMPC) says: “It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness.”
As a family, we didn’t understand this principle until we personally faced financial hardship. Until then, we couldn’t understand why people mismanaged their money; why people had bad credit; why people didn’t own a home, etc. It was easy not to see the other side of things, when seemingly everything was going well in our own life.
We had little patience or empathy for people who mismanaged their finances, until we hit financial devastation ourselves. As we’ve share in previous blogs that when the real estate market crashed we lost all that we had, considering we were both in the real estate and mortgage industry.
Everything that set back showed us, was how people can have financial challenges with no fault of their own; whether it was health bills, divorce settlements, loss of job, etc. That revelation opened our eyes to empathizing with people who faced different types of hardships. We began to not only have empathy regarding their finances, but it caused us to give grace in other areas where we would have overlooked in the past.
Through that experience, we realized how often we’ve messed up, yet God still extended His loving kindness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and even blessings to us, over and over again; whether we deserved it or not.
When we’ve come to our wits end with someone, we often say: “that’s it, I’m only giving them one more chance.” But praise God, our God isn’t like that! How many times have we all failed that “one last chance?”
It’s amazing when God opens your eyes in one area, how that revelation applies to so many other areas. Our eyes may have been opened to give people grace where their finances were concerned. But it also opened our eyes to extend grace in every area because we never know the battle someone is fighting behind the scenes.
So we ask you, will you purpose to be quick to extend the same loving kindness to people just as quickly as God extends it to you?
We’re sharing this post at Salt and Light Link Up!
~André and Timberley Gray
This post has touched me in a real way. Not only do I now see way beyond what I could see in the past, but I’m glad that people can also see beyond my faults and deal with me fairly. thank God for opening our eyes!
Praise God Joleisa! We are so grateful for God’s mercy and loving kindness it only seems fair that we return the same grace to others. ~ Blessings