Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Welcome to another week of the Weekday podcast. Thanks for being with us. Now, if you're anything like me, you've won a lot of arguments.
[00:00:12] But in the shower, you know what I mean. The water's running, you're working the shampoo into your hair, and out of nowhere your brain starts saying, you know what you should have said, and suddenly you're brilliant. The timing is perfect, the logic is airtight. If there was a jury in there, they'd be on their feet applauding you. But there's just one problem. The other isn't there. And the argument happened in 2014. It's not only in the shower, it's in the car on the way to work. Or it's 2:47am in the morning staring at a ceiling fan. We replay the conversation. We edit the script. We rehearse what we'll say if it ever comes up again. And if we're not careful, we can spend years winning arguments the other person doesn't even remember having. So let me ask you something today. Who's running that replay? Because somebody is. Something has the controls. Paul says this in Colossians 3, verse 15. He says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Rule. Paul takes it for granted that something is going to rule your heart. It always does. The only question is, what? And if you've been replaying the same conversation for years, it might not be peace. Here's what a grudge does. It doesn't sit quietly in the corner. It makes decisions for us. It talks for us. It shows up at Thanksgiving dinner. And here's the part that costs the most. A grudge never stays with the person it's aimed at. Instead, a grudge spreads to the people that we love. A kid at the dinner table who can feel the tension in the room, who has no idea where it came from. A spouse who gets the sharp answer that was really meant for a boss. A team at work walking on eggshells around something that happened three years ago, before half of them were even hired. They're paying for a wound that they did not create.
[00:01:58] Paul wrote these words to church, full of people who had every reason in the world to keep score. Jews and Gentiles, wealthy and people who were enslaved. People from completely different worlds trying to be one family.
[00:02:11] Sounds like church. Doesn't it? Sound like a family? Doesn't it? And he didn't tell them to try harder, to be nice. He told them to let someone else be in charge. Let peace make the call. So here's one thing I want to encourage you to try today. The next time you catch yourself replaying that conversation, don't try to win. And again, just ask one question. Who's running this right now? Is it peace, or is it the grudge? You don't have to fix anything yet. You don't have to call anybody. You just have to notice who has the controls. Because you can't hand the controls to peace if you don't know who's holding them. Peace cannot referee a heart where the grudge is still playing. But here's what's interesting. Before Paul ever says the word forgive, he tells these people to put on something.
[00:03:01] And I'd bet money you've got a pile of the wrong thing sitting on a chair in your bedroom right now. And we'll talk about that tomorrow. Until then, have a great day, and we'll see you soon.
