Smooth out the edges

So after working in a church for a while you realize there are a whole mess of well…crazy people out there! You know the kind of people that who after they come around you, you have to ask Jesus for a little more patience. You might say to me, you don’t even know about the people I have to deal with in a day, week, or month, but I can guarantee that we all have those who get under our skin.

Kerry Shook in “One Month to Live” called these people sandpaper people, because they are rough to deal with but they can help smooth out the edges in our own lives. And do you want to know a secret, we are sandpaper people, we all drive someone in this world a little crazy. You never thought of that have you? Think about the person who really drives you up a wall, and then think about the fact that you do that to someone else. It’s comforting isn’t it?

 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, 

which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10 

(Who is a sandpaper person in your life presently? How do you usually relate to them?)

An easy way to help understand others is to identify how they bug you. What part of their personality do you struggle with? Then think about how that person was raised, the life they have lived. This could be the explanation for how they behave. We have to realize that no one is normal, there is no such thing as normal, God has made us all unique. We should not try and pick someone apart when we all have our own problems we have to deal with.

"And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, 

but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 

‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?"

Matthew 7:3-4 

God puts people in our life sometimes to help smooth us out and to try to help us be transformed from what we were to become more like Jesus.

Portions quoted other than scripture came from "One Month to Live" by Pastor Kerry & Chris Shook, to buy click http://www.onemonthtolive.com/