The Bad
Galatians 6:1 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted.
By and large, the simplest thing to do when someone is doing something wrong, something that we know is bad, something that quite clearly is going to have terrible consequences, is, well, just to ignore it.
My wife and I were recently at a café having a quiet cup of coffee, or at least trying to. At the next table was a young mother, on her mobile phone chatting away. Opposite her was her one-year-old, with a cup in his hand, banging it hard and loud on the table.
Now back in my day, I would have taken the cup from him and taught him that that was the wrong thing to do, even though it probably would have resulted in a tantrum. They have to learn, right? And the sooner the better because one day, that one-year-old is going to be a teenager, and then, watch out!
But not this mum. No. She simply ignored the child’s bad behaviour and, apparently oblivious to it, just kept talking on her phone. How that cup didn’t smash in his hand I’ll never know.
This ignoring bad behaviour thing, starts quite early on. And because dealing with bad behaviour takes energy, because it will probably cause conflict along the way, we’ve all become quite adept at turning a blind eye. At ignoring it, hoping it’ll go away.
But that’s generally not what happens. When we ignore bad behaviour, whether it’s in a one-year-old at the café, or a work colleague who’s bullying someone, it almost always gets worse. So what’s the answer? What do you do? How do you deal with it?
My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. (Galatians 6:1)
In other words, God’s calling us to deal with it. God’s calling us, albeit in a spirit of gentleness, to confront the bad behaviour with the aim not of exacting revenge, but of restoring the person who’s doing bad. With the aim of bringing them back to good behaviour.
Now that bit about doing it in a spirit of gentleness is important. If that young mother had put the phone down, and screamed at the child in frustration, well, that probably wouldn’t have been the right approach, any more than you or I responding angrily, with revenge in our hearts, to someone who’s doing us wrong. Take care that you yourself aren’t tempted into that.
But when we do it in love, when we do it with gentleness, when we point out the mistake quietly and offer a better alternative to the person who’s behaving badly, something surprising happens. God shows up. God honours that. And more often than we might expect, that person who’s been behaving badly is restored to good.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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