YOUR SUNDAY BEST
By Terry Scalzitti
Growing up, I can remember my mom saying, “Be sure to put on your Sunday Best!” For us, that meant you ought to be clean, tidy, and looking perfect when you go to church. But at the core of this well-meaning admonishment is a comparison game a lot of us never outgrow.
The trap we fall into is comparing our worst to everyone else’s “Sunday Best.” We all do it. Walking down the hallway at church, smiling and waving to a friend who seems to have it all together . . . we begin thinking to ourselves, “Why can’t I be more like her?” or “Why can’t my child act like theirs?” We quickly recall our worst moments and imagine others’ best moments in comparison. How can we avoid this dangerous trap? One way is to be sure that our faith is an exercise and not a “standard.”
When we treat our faith like a standard, we compare our motives, decisions, and actions to a standard we can’t meet. We’ve been told that we need to be “Christ-like.” The problem is when we fall short of Christ’s standard (which we always will). On the other hand, if as parents we treat our faith as an exercise that we put into practice every day, we will understand that there are growing pains that will happen through successes and failures. That’s the difference between a standard and an exercise . . .
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