I told him I appreciated his honesty, but his manners still have a ways to go. He said you don't have to have manners around your brothers 'cause they don't have any manners either.
He makes a valid point.
But of course that's not the way it works, really. Our character isn't something we get to turn on and off. It's like when your Sunday school teacher tells you that God is always watching you, even when you go to the bathroom, and you get a little terrified and stop wanting to pee.
It's a common misconception that we can be different people in different circumstances. Like the language you use around your friends is okay as long as you don't use it around your kids. While there are certainly different levels of appropriate disclosure (you wouldn't tell the neighbor you just met that you've developed a nasty foot fungus or tell your children that you're having trouble with your spouse) who you are and what you're about as the person God has created you to be doesn't get to change based on who's around you.
Be. Who. You. Are.
Or better yet, be whose you are.
"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates" Deuteronomy 11:18-20
Be who you are, be whose you are, wherever you are. Whether at home or at work or at school or at church. At play or at rest. Bind the truth of God to your character so that it may not be separated from it in any circumstance. Because God does not stop walking with us, even when we try to stop walking with Him.
XOXO...Kelly
