Patience For The Powerless

Good Morning!! Parents, teachers, and bosses make, and enforce rules, or give advice, or bark out orders,...often without first investigating the situation. They're tempted to take the easy way, for one reason or another,...choosing to skip over the patient, selfless, thoughtful work of exploring the hearts and minds, of those under them,...instead provide generic, careless answers to the issues being faced. Even husbands and wives, do it, to each other. "We've been married so long, I'm sure I know what his or her motivation is, why they made that decision or spoke those words." And so he judges his wife's heart, or she assumes her husband's intention.

He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.—Proverbs 18:13 (NKJV)

But it doesn't have to be this way,...a parent, a teacher or a boss could take the time, and make an effort to carefully unearth the struggles and pleasures, that those under their authority, is experiencing. The husband can control his emotions and ask searching, careful questions in order to better understand his wife's perspective. The wife can refuse her inclination to judge her husband and instead explore the situation with a charitable and gracious heart.

No one can answer a question, or give a solution for an issue,...before they've heard the matter, fully.

Holy Spirit, help us with all relationships, decisions, and problems that we may need to hear more fully, and understand better, before we give an answer to, or offer a solution for. Allow us to be more open, to the issues of others. Amen.

"God doesn't call us to be successful,...He calls us to be faithful."