"Vince, please do not talk with your mouth full!" Anna said in a pleading voice.
"Anna," Vince said, with his mouth still pretty packed with tater tot casserole. "Why do you have to be so bossy?"
"Because it looks so disgusting," Anna said.
"That's not an answer," Vince said.
I suppose that both of my children have their points. It is pretty disgusting when someone insists on speaking with their mouth full. There is a reason that most opportunities for oration do not take place in a Golden Corral. On the other hand, it I probably discouraging when your older sister frequently tells you what to do.
Matthew 7 tells us to remove the log from our own eye before attempting to assist our brother with washing the speck out of his. I guess for me, the bigger question is what to do when we are in the position of the brother being criticized (particularly when we can clearly see the log in the one doing the criticism's eye).
It is easy to focus on my brother's faults and choose to ignore the advice he has given, but that feels like exactly the wrong thing to do. Regardless of the issues my brother has, I must listen to his admonition and hear the truth in it if I wish to grow.
Shooting the messenger only destroys the channel by which the message arrives. Similar, maybe, to throwing your cell phone in the ocean when you hear bad news on it.
Some day, I hope that both of my children learn to deal with their faults -- talking with food in their mouth and bossiness, among others. That growth will come faster if they learn to listen to less than perfect messengers (and even, sometimes, their siblings).
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