Have you ever realized how many of the verses in the Bible dealing with our personal growth and maturity in Christ involve direct interaction with other people, other sinners?
People can be annoying.
People can be chafing.
People can burrow under your skin with their insensibility.
Some can be so prickly that interaction with them is akin to hugging a hedgehog.
Amazingly, God has commanded us to live in community with other believers, to bear with the annoying, to be polished by the chafing, and to be changed by the process of living life with one another. That adds much needed perspective to those interactions that could otherwise provoke an emotional and divisive reaction. What if you could see such individuals as gifts from God sent for your sanctification instead of criticizing or avoiding them? What if you could actually THANK the prickly people for being avenues through which God chose to mature you?
PONDER: Think of the prickly people in your life. How could their annoyances be used to build your character? Thank God for providentially placing them in your life.
PRAYER: Father, thank You for the prickly people you have placed in my life. Thank you that through interaction with them, You are adding to my own character and molding me more like Jesus. Help me, Father, to truly appreciate them as avenues of my sanctification.
The Art of One Anothering is one of thirty devotionals I’ve been asked to write this year as part of a friend’s year-long devotional project. You can read more short devotionals like this by clicking here or the Devotionals tab at the top of this page.