Sabbath Devotional :: Life Lessons for Trying Times

Photo by Alexander Mills, courtesy Unsplash

“Pleasant words areas an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and healthy to the bones.” Proverbs 16:24.

It has been quite a week. I have felt mute but stirring internally with bitter retorts. I have felt sucked into chaos and frustration. During the breaking news of hurled insults, repudiations, excuses and gas lighting, I have had flashbacks to hard won lessons of parenting. (My three children are grown, flourishing and beloved. Parenting them was not always a walk in the park, however — as they are each discovering now that they have their own children.)

Here are three examples of lessons that resurfaced this week. Whether or not you have children, these are life lessons applicable to many circumstances.

1. Model good behavior

2. Let go of expectations.

3. God has known and loved — a) your children and b) the people who are currently driving you crazy — longer than you have.

Modeling good behavior may not have immediate results. If you want your children (or those over whom you may have some influence) to see you as competent, eager to learn, and hungry for goodness, demonstrate this in your own life.

Do not, however, expect that your example will have an immediate impact.

I say this with the vivid memory of overhearing my then 9-year-old conversing with his buddy. My son asked his friend, “What does your mom do all day?” His friend replied, “Nothing, I guess.” My son replied, “Well, at least my mom cleans up the place.”

It takes their own time and experience to make an impact and to have the scales fall from their eyes.

This leads well into the second crucial lesson: Let go of expectations. In interactions with children (and with those who behave like children) despite discipline, curfews, suspended allowances, ultimately you have no control over how the other person will act in the long run. (Well, in certain circumstances you can vote them out of office.)

Like God (sort of), you “can call, persuade, direct aright, and bless with wisdom, love, and light, In nameless ways be good and kind, but never force the human mind.” (#240) This does not mean you should stop being persuasive, good and kind, etc.

Regardless of whether anyone starts putting their laundry in the bin — or continues the funding for the First Responders — you still have to keep up noble behaviors for your own sake. (You don’t, however, have to DO their laundry if they keep that bad habit up.)

The third lesson is especially powerful. God knows us and loves us, knows what we’re going through, and also knows and loves the person who is causing us grief. One of my most powerful spiritual experiences came when I despaired that nothing I could say or do would help my child with a significant struggle. While praying about this, I came to understand by that still, small voice that God has known and loved my child longer than I have, and I was not carrying this burden alone. What a holy, comforting reassurance that was.

This is as true in our close associations, and I believe it is the thread throughout every aspect of our lives. God knows and loves all of his children. We are not in this struggle alone. And, while Marianne Williamson may have been lampooned by some for her comments at the first debate, she voiced what I am still trying to work on: ‘I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field. And, . . . love will win.’

1 Peter 3:8-11: Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, [sisterly] love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, . . . . For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.