Challenge: Putting Away

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.  Eph 4:31-32

With just a quick read over these familiar final verses of chapter four, it’s easy – especially sitting in the peacefulness of my early morning quiet time – to say that I am not caught up in bitterness, anger, and the others; to say that I am ready to walk in kindness for the day.

And then the kids get up.

And then the emails comes.

And then something arrives in the mail.

And then something pops up at church.

And then…well, you get the picture.

Somewhere just below the surface of any of my calms lie the embers of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice.  The smallest amount of fuel can cause any one of them to flame up again in an instant as a reminder that I have not put them away from me.  I have only covered them up in a shallow grave.

It is not truly possible to show the kindness of verse 32 if I have not put away the things of verse 31.  Sure, I can go through the motions, but I can’t really live out the depth of the tender-hearted and forgiving kindness that Paul is referring to.  On the other hand, it is impossible to hold onto the disgusting embers of verse 31 if I am truly living the beauty of verse 32. 

I can taste the freedom that comes from truly putting the things of verse 31 away from me.  I deeply hunger for the kindness of verse 32 to be natural for me.  But to make those things real, I have to act.  I have to put away.   It’s not an easy challenge, but it is one I am aching to live out, day by day, through successes and failures.  That I may live to radiate the kind, tender-hearted, forgiving love of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.