‘Be gracious to yourself.’ ‘Be kind to yourself.’ ‘God forgives you, so you should forgive you!’ I’ve heard these words quite a few times. Mostly they are spoken by friends that love me and want me to stop fretting about confession, forgiveness and sanctification and to move on, trusting and continuing.
I believe in confession.
I believe in forgiveness.
I believe in sanctification.
But I’m learning them still.
But those are my struggles. I know my own sins, I know my weaknesses, I know where I’m easily tempted, I know where I fail and where I fall… over and over again. I know all this and I have hope, because I see change. Small change, slow change, but change. And that’s me, mine and I.
What about others? We are all different, we love different things, dislike different things and are indifferent about different things. But are we also weak in different areas? Are we tempted in different ways? Do we sin differently? Do we fall in other traps? I think so.
If so… We can’t expect the same reaction we have towards life, from others.
Remember the image of the fish, the monkey, the turtle and the bird? In the image, all four of them were about to be scored on the same assignment: Climb a tree. Ridiculous! Yes, for sure. And we all agree that everyone has different talents and gifts, so we cannot expect the same results from different people, doing the same assignment. The fish will win at swimming, the bird at flying, the monkey at climbing and the turtle at eating pizza.
Same with weaknesses, temptations and failures. We all have different areas of trouble. We are weak in different ways. I will most likely always be clumsy. Let me tell you about Johan, the man with five pastries and two coffees! The other day, I was on my way to a meeting, carrying pastries and coffee. The journey up the stairs went ok, I probably even whistled. Once I was upstairs, I only needed to manage my motor-skill-challenged-body up another three steps, to enter the conference room.
I managed to trip and fall, and fellow-experienced-clumsy-people know that there are many things going through your head when you start going down:
-Save the pastries.
-Save the coffee.
-Save your teeth.
-Save your knees.
-SAVE YOUR DIGNITY!
The coffee and the body-part efforts won. I landed on my stomach, with one hand (the pastry hand) under my body, and one hand (the coffee hand) up in the air. The rest of my body was rocking back and forth like a rocking chair, my stomach, or whatever, my belly, was the central rocking point. Half of the coffee was left in the cup, the pastries were savagely squished, and my dignity caught the last flight to Alaska. Six people rushed in to mop the coffee, resuscitate the pastries and comfort me with soothing sounds while pointing out I probably would want to change my shirt. I tried to hide myself in the Alaska-headed-luggage, didn’t succeed and went down to change my shirt. Johan, the man with five pastries and two coffees… A bit of a different outcome than the boy with the five loafs and two fish.
Let’s say I gather all my weakness, failure, temptation and sin into that one characteristic of being clumsy. And then, I compare myself to my friend Angelo. Angelo is a genius, he cuts his own hair, he fixes his own motorbike, he can take apart and put together smartphones, he renovated his own house, is a wizard with finances, he can cook, play the bass, raised two children and he can read you a story like only Stephen Fry can. Compared to Angelo, and looking at all these areas, I stink! And if Angelo would expect the same excellence from me in these activities, he would be severely disappointed. But he doesn’t do that. He knows me and my capabilities. When I need to fix my smartphone, he does it for me, because he knows I’m not good at it. When I call him with a question about a practical issue, he doesn’t mock me. No, he helps me with things he is good at. I glow in the dark when he asks my help with things. It makes me so happy when I can do something for him, but yeah, that’s not the topic here.
My point is: knowing we are all weak in different areas, but also that we excel in other stuff, should make us realise we need to approach people with the same kindness we show ourselves. We know where we are weak and learn how to be gracious to ourselves. In the same way, we should be gracious to others’ weaknesses, even though we don’t always know what they are.
Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.
Ian Maclaren (1850-1907)
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Paul of Tarsus (5-64)
Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas from Pexels
Recipes of Hope 
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