Tamara R. Hay

I’m perplexed by leaders who grow harsher, more legalistic and less compassionate in their older years. It seems, at least to my understanding, to go against the grain of aging for a person walking with the Lord. Unless there is hardness of heart caused by resentment, bitterness, jealousy, perversity or the like, the aging grow in holiness marked by humility and gentleness. Fact is, we’ve seen too much sin, weakness and failure in ourselves and received too much grace and mercy to be otherwise. Think, for example, of the scene in John 8 where people are ready to stone the adulterous woman. Jesus says, OK, let the one without sin cast the first stone. And you know how the story goes. They drop those stones, one by one, and walk away starting with the older ones. Why? Because they know the length, breadth and depth of their own sins and failures. Think of James 3:13 where he draws a direct connection between wisdom and gentleness, the latter indicating not powerlessness or eroding convictions but power and conviction submitted to the control and wise restraint of the Holy Spirit. Gentleness is also fruit of the Holy Spirit. Jesus described himself as gentle. Though he was utterly sinless, he was deeply compassionate, having been tempted in all ways. Harshness, extremism and a condemning spirit are ill-fitting to the aging in Christ. I have no desire to name names or cast stones or I’m no different from those I find baffling. I just want to say we’re greatly helped by an honest and frequent examination of our own hearts to see if they are growing in tenderness and compassion or in the hardness of unresolved character issues.

One of the most consequential indoctrinations of this present era is the advanced science of blame-shifting. Generally speaking, we have forgotten how to take responsibility for our own errors, misjudgments, poor decisions and sins. Watch, for example, how rarely we see individuals on social media apologize. We all blow it. No one on earth gets it right all the time and no one is a bigger pretender than the one who acts like he or she is always right. As James teaches, the one who does not sin with his or her mouth is a perfect individual, able to control the whole body as well. If you’re anything like me, you’ve proved well UNable. Yet even in this universal human condition, we seem to be unable to get the words *I’m sorry* or *I blew it* or *that was on me* out of our mouths. Sometimes it’s not that we’ve forgotten. It’s because we know we’re going to get a double skewering when we do. People pile on in with, that’s not enough! Or, how about the time you did so-and-so! But that’s where we have to leave it to them to take responsibility for their own addiction to rage. There’s also the reality that far fewer people see the apology than saw the mistake and we’re asked for eons if we’re ever going to apologize. I don’t think we have to keep doing it over and over. It will never be enough anyway. Sometimes we just have to take the hit and move on with deeper humility. Social media is by no means the only place we see a compulsive unwillingness to take responsibility. I’m a big proponent of seeking reputable therapy to sort out, for instance, why we were inclined to make such disastrous, self-destructive & other’s-destructive decisions. But, in doing only this, we stop too soon and deep healing eludes us. We will never genuinely change if we constantly shift blame. It will not only affect the big situations but the everyday inability to simply say, *OK, I blew it there. I’m sorry.* I’ll wrap this up with what’s most at stake. If we don’t take responsibility, we won’t repent. If we won’t repent, we can’t be refreshed. I say this as one who is old and has made all the mistakes. Based on our inclination to often avoid it at all costs, I don’t think we realize the sheer gift from God we have in repentance. With sufficient self-awareness, we could humbly and sincerely repent, find grace and mercy at God’s throne and, see Acts 3:19, times of refreshing come upon us. Honest to goodness, one enormous reason why we’re so harshly judgmental, dried up spiritually and meaner than snakes is our chronic resistance to repentance. That said, I take full responsibility for this gargantuan, overly wordy post and, well, I’m sorry. :)