She walked up to the counter and asked, “Any double chocolate brownies left?” The cashier said, “No, they’re all gone.” I wanted to jump up right there and scold, “No they’re not! I saw you put them away an hour ago.” It may have been wrong for him to put everything away so far before closing but really it wasn’t any of my business.
We sometimes think we are the hall monitors of the world and we stick our nose in where it doesn’t belong. Proverbs 9:7 and 8 tell us if we try to correct the wrong person we’re going to get insulted and hated. “If you correct an evil person, you will get hurt.” It’s not our personal business to be worrying about what other people are doing or not doing. We need to be busy doing what we’re supposed to be doing and let the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of God guide us concerning other people.
If the Holy Spirit had told me to say something about the missing brownies, I would have, but He didn’t, so I needed to just keep quiet (and quit grumbling under my breath about it too!) I didn’t know the whole story and my butting in was not what God wanted anyway.
Even when we have so much to share, and good advice and great wisdom to talk about, the Bible says, “Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (tear you in pieces).” Is that what we want? Of course not! And the Lord doesn’t want that for us either. He’ll let us know when to give advice and when not to. When it comes to reproving or correcting, it’s essential to be led by the spirit of Christ from within. And the motivation has to be the love of God, not the self-righteous scolding of a know-it-all.
Instead of jumping into situations where the Spirit hasn’t led us, we can pray the words Jesus said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” That way we don’t get hurt and people who want to hear what we have to say will come our way.
Love, Carolyn
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