Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Col. 3:12–14
Merciful Jesus, I can’t think of a passage in any translation of the Bible that uses the image of “walking on eggshells” to describe one of the broken ways we often relate to one another. But I’m glad there’s grace and repentance for this, and the many other destructive relational dances we develop with one another. You’ve made us for honest, caring relationships and the richness of intimacy, but sin has pillaged and distorted your good plan. O, how we need the resources of the gospel and the power of your Spirit in all of our relationships.
Jesus, as a people chosen in you before the world began, holy in you, and dearly loved by you, help us realize when others experience us as a minefield of irritability, a self-righteous porcupine, or a rigid control-meister. We don’t want to be the kind of people who make others feel the need to tiptoe around us or avoid us. Help us see, own, and deal with the ways we make ourselves inaccessible, unapproachable and unteachable. Gentle and humble us by the gospel.
Our need doesn’t stop there, Jesus. We also need your grace when we’re on the other side of this broken style of relating—of treating others as too fragile or too dangerous to handle feedback or conflict. When we fall into this pattern, it simply reveals how little of your love we’re currently enjoying and how little of the power of the gospel is presently at work in our lives. Free us from all the ways we live enslaved to the fear and approval of people.
Jesus, you have completely forgiven all of our sins. You have robed us with your glorious righteousness. We are fully accepted and eternally acceptable to God in you. You are irrepressibly forbearing and patient with us. You do not shame us and you will not abandon us. Never let us forget this good news for a nanosecond, for it is the power we need to love one another well. Daily, even hourly, remind us to put on the garments of your grace: kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
We long for the day of complete wholeness and health—when every one of our relationships will reflect the joy, peace, and intimacy of the Trinity. Until that day, give more grace to these yet-to-be-glorified hearts of ours, Jesus. So very Amen pray, in your kind and persistent name.
