It is strange how some of life’s best spiritual lessons come about in the humblest of ways. I was on my wayto church when at the corner I run into a renegade church member. You know one of those embarrassing moments when you turn a blind corner and bam! Someone you didn’t plan on meeting is right on your side of the road. So yes, she looked at me sideways and I looked at her sideway (she with an apologetic ‘don’t judge me I’m only going to other churches now until our church sorts out its mess’ look and I with a judgmental ‘you renegade! It’s because of you that people say our church is falling apart’ look.
Needless to say I thought up many self-righteous things once I had passed her and shortly up the walk I noticed she had dropped a kerchief. I am eternally ashamed that I walked right past, glancing once over my shoulder once , noting she had taken the corner to right, I justified myself for not turning back. I went on to completely forget about it, after all, I had efficiently ‘justified’ myself. After church, on my way back home what did I find but the kerchief nicely picked, folded up and neatly placed on the nearest clean spot on the brick fence next to the sidewalk. To my sinking shame, I couldn’t do even that for someone I go to the church with, all because, of all things: she likes to visit other churches!
It took a stranger to show me how quickly the trap of self-righteous –controlling behaviour can consume me. It might seem a small thing but what if the kerchief incident had not happened today, who knows what walls I would have continued to build. . It’s time to pick up the kerchief and remember there is no vacancy in the Trinity.
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