Stubborn

December 5, 2018

DAILY READING

Luke 11:29-32
This weekend’s reading: Malachi 3:1-4

FIELD NOTES

My brother is hardheaded.  Do you have a hardheaded family member?  Someone so dense, they consistently do things that harm them just out of spite?  That’s my brother.  

When we were younger, he would often back talk our mom to the point of it erupting into a screaming match and him being grounded for an indeterminate amount of time.  

This happened time and time again.  I would often try to interject as the older brother—“Calm down, dude!” I would say to him.  But he wouldn’t listen.  He wasn’t going to listen to me, and he wasn’t going to stop escalating the situation with Mom.  

20 years later and he has had to learn to work better with others, but it’s still a fight for him.  He still refuses to listen to me most of the time.  I still love him, but I’ve given up trying to make his decisions for him.  I’ve had to let him go his own way.  As did our parents.  Not that he is in dire circumstances now, but I wonder if his life would have been a little easier had he not been so hardheaded.  

QUESTIONS FROM THE FIELD

• Why do we let stubbornness put up road blocks in our life?
• What good things have we missed out due to being stubborn and hardheaded?

PRAYER

Lord, soften our hearts to your ways over ours.  Amen.