Recently I watched a sad series of events. It all started when a well trained dog was asleep in her favorite bed in the family room. A visiting family was enjoying time with us in the same room. Their three year old, unnoticed by the parents, walked over to the sleeping dog and suddenly bumped the dog. The dog, completely surprised, awoke, let out a frightened yelp, and looked about to see what had happened. This was all normal and unremarkable.
The child’s young parents, however, reacted to the dog’s fear cry with fear of their own. They saw the dog’s fear reaction to being startled as anger. They swept up their child to protect the child. Thus, they began to teach the child to fear the dog. They then created a barrier of protection and said the child could not be anywhere that there was not a wall or fence between the child and the dog. For the rest of their visit they never let the child develop a relationship with the dog.
More recently, I observed two men talking, let me call them Tom and George. It was obvious from the conversation that Tom had done a minor thing to”hurt” George. George began to explain to Tom how Tom could in the future avoid hurting George in the same way. Tom, instead of listening to George, began saying he was not required to tolerate George’s anger and terminated the conversation. Like the parents of the child, Tom saw George’s hurt and substituted his own idea that George was angry. Like the parents also, Tom erected a barrier of non-communication to protected himself from his perception of anger.
If you watch around you, I think you too will see relationships being weakened or broken by people substituting their own emotional interpretations or reactions and thus preventing themselves from seeing what is really happening. As Jesus said, “If you were blind, I could heal you. But, because you say you can see, your sin remains with you.”
Lord Jesus, please deliver me from believing I can see. Please deliver me from believing in my own emotional reactions. Please heal my blindness.
His, thus Yours,
Stuart
His-Family 
This writing is so simple, one could miss the depth of what has been said…..I am holding on to this, let it be my prayer!!
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