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If you want to know the depth of one’s character, observe how they treat children and the elderly.
Folks on the extreme ends of life’s timeline usually have enormous needs and limited capabilities. These built-ins to their age bracket often place their daily success and ongoing dignity at the mercy of the people around them. Character is an outwardly focused nobility that is consistently offered — often at high personal cost — to people who can’t necessarily return the favor. It doesn’t really matter, therefore, what we say we are as a person.
When it comes to true character, the kindness, patience, and honor we show to children and the elderly tends to tell the more accurate story. And we could add to our character-test list widows and orphans (James 1:27), as well as the “least of these” type of people Jesus listed in Matthew 25:31-46.
God’s Grace As Your Family’s Default Mode
Which brings us to the subject at hand — God’s grace. It’s easy to give theoretical assent to the reality of God’s grace, but the ultimate litmus test as to whether or not we’ve truly allowed his grace to become our default mode is how we treat the people in our family. Home has a best-of-times-and-worst-of-times nature about it. As such, family can either be a watershed opportunity for us to move from walking in the flesh to living in the power of God’s Spirit, or it can be our Waterloo.
If grace doesn’t show up in the crucible of our demanding family dynamics, it doesn’t mean that the gospel is impotent, but it may mean that we’re kidding ourselves if we say we’ve truly embraced the transforming work of God’s grace deep down in our lives.
We can give lip-service to God’s grace all we want. But if our kids would prefer having their gums sanded over having to eat at the same table with us each day, and our spouse would rather wake up alone rather than next to us morning after morning, then most likely the grace we say we embrace is merely our lip-syncing to the real thing. I’ve just listed two worst-case scenarios to make everybody feel better, but the truth is there are all kinds of things we can do — short of making our family members wish we weren’t in the Christmas photo — that still speak to the minimal presence of God’s grace in our relationships.
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