A Thing Aaron Taught Me

 “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another,  if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” Colossians 3:12-15

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”

Psalm 133:1

Aaron is a gracious person. I simply am not. I wish this was my nature rather than wrath. Aaron loses his temper on occasion, of course. He’s a regular person like the rest of us. But he is slow to wrath when I am quick. He is slow to think the worst when I am quick. He sees the best in people and I rarely hear him speak negatively about anyone. And everyone, EVERYONE, loves Aaron. I hear this about him all the time: He’s so nice to everyone! and it’s so true. 

For years I have been the aunt of my nieces. Just the aunt, not their friend or encourager. Ready to tell them when they are dumb. Quick to cut them off mid-story so that I can correct them or reprimand them. Quick to roll my eyes and sigh and be angry over any of their failings. Literally SO angry when they did even the smallest thing wrong. I have been incredibly ungracious to them and DID NOT CARE. I justified it every time and refused to see it for the sin that it is. I would get upset with Aaron if he did not respond to the girls as I did because I believed so firmly that I was right. 

Aaron refused to listen to me (I was so mad!). And because he’s so non confrontational, he wouldn’t argue with me about it either. He would just say things like “I don’t think it’s my place. They have parents.” Or “I really hate making people feel bad all the time.” WELL EXCUSE ME, MR NICE GUY. It’s not like I’m trying to make people feel bad! I’m trying to HELP them by slicing their little hearts out! It’s scientifically proven to work!

But over time I saw how the girls flinched at me, but were comforted by Aaron. And it began to grieve me. We had Luna and I would look at her and imagine if I’d rather be like Aaron or be like myself toward my children. Quick to wrath or quick to forgive. Quick to verbal lashing or quick to comfort. Quick to correct or quick to encourage. Which would I be? 

The vote is still out on this one, but I hope to be gracious like Aaron. I believe I’ve had some growth.

I can now say that my nieces are some of my very best friends, which I do not believe would have happened without Aaron. Even when we disagree (frequently), we can sit peaceably together and enjoy conversations and fellowship. I so look forward to their every visit. I love them so much, and want to be an uplifter in their lives and dreams and quirks and failures. I tell them all the time they were my little guinea pigs. Thru them, and thru Aaron, I am learning how to be a better mom, a better friend, a better child of God.

After seeing such a transformative restoration in my relationship with my nieces, it really kinda took the wind out of my sails in the best way. It has affected the way I view my relationship with anyone else. It’s affected the way I view people in general. It’s been a tool that God has used to show me why I lack unity with so many others. 

I also read a book a couple years ago called Messy Grace. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. Rachel recommended it to me and it was an iron sharpeneth iron moment in our friendship. I’m indebted to her for that book recommendation. I felt crushing conviction as I read it, but also the most incredible hope that I can change and view people with genuine love, charity, and forgiveness. That I can view people through the lens of “Christ died on the cross because He loves this person so much”. This book and the situation with Aaron/my nieces felt life altering in my walk with the Lord. Both revealed such an incredible amount of self righteousness within myself.

I am quick to wrath, rigid, and uncompromising, I am judgmental and self righteous. This was always evident in how I treated the girls and evident in my criticism of people in general. I am the man in Luke 18 who said,”God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.” This parable starts by saying “He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” 

Despised others- a trait of a Pharisee. And this is me. Trusting in my own righteousness. This is me, also.

I don’t believe its possible to have unity with everyone because not everyone wants unity. I think unity likely sounds nice to everyone, but in reality we like having our own way too much. This is a sin-filled world and discord is part of it.

Boundaries are a difficult, necessary part of life. Sometimes we need to walk away from a relationship or at least distance ourselves from it.

But it is the goal to have unity as much as possible with as many as possible.

I believe unity starts within our own hearts as a side effect of knowing the Lord better. I don’t believe unity is possible without intentionally, daily working to draw closer to God.

I used to view unity as something I did. I thought that the correct amounts of fellowship, prayer, and empathy would result in unity. But in my experience they have frustratingly never created unity because as I would get to know people better I could see their flaws and I could not forgive them (no empathy apparently). Without the inward work these good things would instead cause bickering, bitterness, and irritation. Not because fellowship, prayer, and empathy are bad, but because I was working backwards toward unity.

For most of my life I didn’t understand that my standards and my outward appearance weren’t as important as knowing God better. I read my Bible to see what it could do for me and how I could apply these important words as a magic potion to improve my life. I didn’t read the Bible to get to know God better. My standards, my outward appearance, my opinions- these were what I thought held me close to God.

If anyone else didn’t meet up to my personal standards, then I viewed myself as better. My sin did not stink as much as their sin. I cared more about hair cuts and tattoos and the length of a dress (Things that I now believe Satan uses as a red herring to keep us from the real work of knowing the Lord. If he can keep us busy bickering over the things that don’t matter, that works out well for him.) than I did about the sin of gossip or gluttony or being a busybody.

God says to love thy neighbor as thyself. It is very hard to love someone if you are looking down your nose at them, though. It’s very hard to draw close to the Lord when we are thanking Him that we are not as other men while congratulating ourselves on our superiority.

This is how I believe unity happens: I humble my own heart before the Lord, letting go of my own standards and expectations, letting go of “What can God do for me”, letting go of meddling and petty quarrels, letting go of the self righteousness that soothes me, letting go of needing everyone to agree with me, letting go of an ungracious mouth which is quick to speak out of turn, letting go of gossip, letting go of believing with all my heart that I am always right.

And instead embrace the character of God as I get to know Him better:

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.” Joel 2:13

A spirit of forgiveness and graciousness goes a long way toward restoring relationships and creating unity.

How can I let go of all those bad parts of me that I just listed? I think it would depend on the person, but here are three things I am currently doing to actively and intentionally make an inward change. If you think of it, pray for me as I press toward the mark because it is so difficult to rewire my brain.

Replace bad thoughts with good thoughts. This looks like how it sounds. Anytime I catch myself thinking something negative, self righteousness, irritated, or ungracious, I literally say “No” aloud. And then mentally throw that thought into a mental trash can and go find a good thought instead. Right now I am using thankfulness as a counter thought. “Thank you God for *fill in the blank*”. This is a constant, non stop, all day every day work of mental self discipline.

I am trying to read my Bible differently and ask as I read,”What does this tell me about God?” and stop asking myself what does this do for me or how can I apply this to me today. I am reading a Bible study and this was the topic recently. It felt revolutionary to me because I genuinely do not remember the last time I read my Bible or listened to a sermon with the thought of how it can teach me about God. Instead I have always thought about what it can do for me on that day. This has been surprisingly difficult to remember to do. I have always been very self centered when reading my Bible, and it feels so drastically different to read it to know God. I read the parable of the seed last week and recognized myself as the seed without root. How can I root if I do not know God well because I’m too busy thinking about what He can do to make my life better? Make me a better Christian, God! Well, He’d like to if I tried to get to know Him better.

A lot of times I use a quick question as a guide when it comes to contention and irritation: “Is this thing worth my relationship with this person?” 

Am I willing to cause hurt, contention, resentment, bitterness, etc over this thing? Is this thing worth snapping at Aaron over? Is this thing worth berating my kids over? Is this thing worth the anger it makes me feel toward another human who God loves?

Usually the answer is no. Usually my relationship is more valuable than proving my point or getting my way. This question often helps me diffuse the anger within and see how unreasonable I am being.

I really want unity within my family. I want to win the hearts of my children. I want to please the Lord with my spirit. Aaron has been a buffer against me. An ocean wave making sea glass. I love this about God’s plan for spouses. We are meant to sharpen each other and Aaron has done this for me. I am so thankful for him. So thankful that God has given me this.