the penny drops once again

I dunno... It's amazing how some things can get sooo under your skin... Recently, I have been seeing the 'other' side of people a whole lot more than usual. I won't go into detail, but I'm sure a lot of you can relate in one way or another. I have noticed that it seems to happen a lot in churches [don't know whether in churches we expect more of people, who in reality are sinners just the same; or whether church-goers have a tendency toward being judgemental either knowingly or unknowingly - I'm not too sure which it is sometimes] but I am also weary of saying anything lest I look like I am being judgemental myself.

It can get discouraging when people don't measure up to your expectations - you expect that because they know doctrine inside and out, they are the 'go-to' people for advice on doing the 'right thing', they give perfect answers (or even lead) during Bible studies, they sing in perfect pitch during service, they always say the right thing, at the right time, in the right way - that they would be awesome examples for 'the rest of us' to follow when it comes to the 'real world'... but so many times they're not, we're not, and I'm not.

I know that we are to look to Jesus as our example on how to live, and looking to man for answers is the foolish thing to do - but like I said before, these small things that we are supposed to ignore, just don't seem to go away and instead lodge themselves under my skin an irritate me to the point of disillusionment.

But after some reflection, God opened my eyes and I realised something - when we feel disillusionment with others who have done the same as what we have done ourselves at one time or another, we start to get an idea of how God (who unlike us, has never done what we have done to Him, i.e. sinned) would feel when we fail to reach His expectations (perfection). This is how He would feel if He thought like us - but He doesn't. His response to our falling short of His expectations was to send His only Son - Jesus Christ - to die and hence help us meet His standard once again. Just stop reading and really think about that... It's easy to just swallow something like that and put it in the 'what-I-already-know-basket' but just think about it...

When someone hurts you, when someone gets soooo under your skin, whesn someone discourages you, when someone causes you to feel disillusioned and disappointed, when someone doesn't meet your expectations of who you want them to be - and instead of thinking about what they have done wrong, YOU sacrifice what is dearest to you to help them become something that they TOTALLY don't deserve to be... THAT is what real love is.