My mother, an English major and history minor, enjoyed tossing around old sayings. “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” She used that one with one of my feistier friends.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” None of us kids took that one too seriously.
If someone was mad, she’d say, “They can get glad in the same shoes they got mad in.” Happiness and anger are both choices.
Mom had other phrases for angry people, especially those that whined when they were verbally one-upped by someone-“If they can’t stand the heat, they need to get out of the kitchen,” or “Those who live in glass castles shouldn’t throw stones.”
Agreed. Those who have their own failings, their own sets of frailties, and their own areas of vulnerability, incompetence, and deficiency shouldn’t be casting stones. They’d be wise to step back and take a look at their own life before pronouncing judgment on others.
Jesus had His sayings, too. Hypocrites “strain gnats” in your life while they “swallow camels” in their own lives. They’re more than willing to point out the “speck” in your eye while they have “logs” floating in their own eyes.
And those who carry a whole arsenal of stones to cast your way don’t seem to hear Jesus’ admonition, “He who is without sin may cast the first stone.” Or maybe they’ve heard the words and truly believe they’re justified in rock throwing. Other sayings probably apply to them.
Difficult people are a fact of life-we’ve all encountered those who are harsh, critical, eager to be angry. Like the “pot calling the kettle black” they will be oblivious to their own failings while they magnify our inadequacies. One of life’s certainties is that we will encounter stones hurled our way, and it helps to be equipped with more than just a few clever sayings.
So, when someone tries to hurt you… when someone hurls a verbal spear your direction. When someone takes aim because you didn’t meet their expectations. When someone scoffs at your pain. When someone triumphs at your mistakes or blames you for their insufficiencies, you have a choice.
Instead of flinging back the stone in a return volley, leave it on the ground. Don’t pick it up, don’t roll it around in your hand contemplating the damage you could do in return-choose grace instead.
Look at it. Recognize and acknowledge the pain it caused, then choose to leave the stone where it lies.
Let the stones fall. Let them heap up to become a monument to the grace you’ve chosen to live in. A reminder of the freedom of forgiveness you’ve experienced and can now bestow on those who hurt you. A testament to the peace of releasing your antagonist to God’s realm.
You can choose to rest in the confidence that God is good and He freely bestows grace, to you, as well as to the stone-thrower. He offers grace when you feel buried in a pile of stones.
As Mom would probably say, grace is just a stone’s throw away.
“Do not be eager in your heart to be angry.” (Ecclesiastes 7:9)
