Unity

This morning I was reading Psalm 133 which is subtitled, "Living in Harmony". It says:
1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. 3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

I woke up this morning, grumbling in my mind that my two weeks of vacation are almost over. Monday morning it's back to the grind. Back to working with an office full of people as different as night and day. Some are believers, others are not; some are pleasant to work with, others are not; some are helpful and encouraging, others are not. Let's face it..., not everyone is as wonderful as we are (or are we the others...?).

For me, the last two weeks of being at home with my family have been good. We've had a lot of time just to be together and enjoy one anothers company. We also shared the holidays with extended family which went off without a hitch, not a single fight. As vs. 1 says, " How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!"

Just like every coin has two sides, dealing with family and friends can also pose a very different scenario. You could re-write vs. 1 to say, "How horrible and un-pleasant it is when family lives together but separate". We've all experienced that. Separated by hurt feelings, perceived wrongs, judgements, anger...(you can fill in the blank).

Beth Moore states, "God often uses other people as the chisel to carve true integrity into our rough personalities. A chisel that never scrapes the stone is useless".

God took out the chisel this morning and showed me that the root of "dis-unity" in my own life has often been my "judgements" (ouch). I place my expectations of how other people should act, react, respond on them and then I judge them accordingly. Not a very pleasant way to live. Definitely not the way to pave the road to a lifetime of blessings.

The people at work. The people in my home. The people I will meet later today. I may need some band-aids as God "takes the chisel to my rough personality and carves into me true integrity". My prayer is that God will use each one of them to carve me into the woman that He intends for me to be. As He picks up the chisel and gets ready to strike, I know that I am in good hands. There's no better place to be.

Have a blessed day!

-Lisa