Everybody has bad days. Kay knows that I have two touchy times every week. I’m touchy on Saturday afternoon because I’m focused on the message I am about to preach. And the other time I’m touchy is Monday morning, because I’m drained from preaching all weekend and talking to people between services. So Kay makes allowances for that. She cuts me some slack.
That’s a key part of how you deal with EGRs (people with Extra Grace Required). In the last few devotionals, I’ve mentioned that in dealing with EGRs we need to look behind the behavior and refuse to be offended. But we also must deal with them like Kay deals with me when I’m in a touchy mood: We have to cut them some slack.
The Bible says, “Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love” (Ephesians 4:2b TLB).
Not everyone who bugs you or hurts you realizes what they’re doing. Oftentimes they’re responding to their own hidden pain, and they don’t even know that they’re hurting all these people around them.
So what do you do? When I have a hard time overlooking an offense, I remember the great gift of God’s forgiveness. I remember a verse like Colossians 3:13: “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (NLT, second edition).
Talk It Over
Can you think of a time when you’ve annoyed or frustrated someone but you were completely unaware of it at the time? What’s one lesson you learned from that experience?
Why do we struggle with cutting one another slack for relatively minor annoyances?
Who needs some extra slack from you this week?
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