Stepping Stones and Stumbling Blocks

Stepping Stones and Stumbling Blocks

Romans 12:10  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves.

Somedays, people just get on my nerves.  With my work, I meet a vast range of personalities.  I am an event photographer.  Many times, I don’t meet my client until I walk into their vacation home to begin my session.  I never know if I’m walking into a hornet’s nest of emotion or if everyone will be embracing a spirit of togetherness.  I must be willing to adapt and make compromises quickly.  When it is my work, I can easily step into the role of problem solver or peacemaker.  In my personal life, not so much.

I don’t know about you, but I am a do it my way kind of woman.  Think my way.  Believe my way.  Do things my way.  I also find myself being very judgmental when others don’t do things my way..  Only recently has God convinced me that as long as I am narrow-minded in my beliefs, I cannot follow His plan for me.  I have learned that compromise in your emotions and in the way you do things in order to uplift others tends to help put out fires more than being rigid, hard-headed, and dogmatic.  I don’t always have to be right.  I don’t always have to have my way.  As a matter of fact, it’s sinful. By being so set in my ways, I build a wall between others and myself.  I become a stumbling block.

You see, Satan can use anybody as a weapon.  It doesn’t matter how Godly we think we are, Satan can find a weakness in our makeup and use it to cause others to stumble.  While I’m over here thinking I’m all right and holy because I love Jesus, Satan sees my unwillingness to give a little and shuts doors on what may have been a great opportunity for me to share my love for our God.  And you know what I’ve learned?  I will not die if I just give a little.

Isn’t it funny when we go through life being all stubborn and declaring that “I would never do such and such” or “I can’t believe they did this or that” and one day we find ourselves doing the same thing we proclaimed we’d never do?  Don’t be so self-righteous that you are a hypocrite.  For me, personally, there is no bigger turnoff as I learn to follow Jesus than a hypocritical Christian.  Jesus loves all of us.  Every one of us.  We should love each other and have tolerance for one another so that we do not cause each other to sin by being a total turn off for them.  Yes ma’am.  I’m preaching to the choir today.

Dear Lord, teach me Your ways.  Teach me humbleness.  Teach me that I don’t have to plow through a mountain, that sometimes it is ok to go over or around it.  Teach me to love like you do, to love everybody, just as they are.  Please give me the right words to reach people without being judgmental.  Give me the ability to bend when I need to bend so that I become a stepping stone and not a stumbling block.  Thank you for Your love, Your grace, and Your mercy.