Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:20-23

Should a follower of Jesus react differently to life’s irritations and the flawed people that rub us wrong day after day?

Jason was fed up.  His morning coffee order had been messed up, an overnighted package he was expecting didn’t arrive, and someone at work didn’t complete their part of a big project that Jason was responsible for, making Jason look bad to his boss.  Can’t people just do their jobs? he thought in disgust.

There’s no way around it: this world is deeply broken, and the people who live in it don’t get things right a lot of the time.

Jason is a follower of Jesus.  He needs a reminder, as I do, that Christianity uniquely looks at man and life as they really are. The Bible addresses our human, flawed condition, explaining that all creation groans under a curse, but that the good news is that Jesus broke that curse with His sacrifice of love.  We look forward, says the Bible book of Romans 8, in eager hope for the coming, promised day when we’re released once and for all from the effects of sin and suffering. Jesus-follower, living with this human condition of brokenness is temporary.

“This side of eternity, we will never unravel the good from the bad,” writes Richard Foster. “But …God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture…That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well.”[1]

Until then, Jesus-follower, our lives should be marked by grace-giving—even when our coffee order’s messed up.

[1] Foster, Richard. “Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.” Google Books, John Murray Press, 16 Feb. 2012, https://books.google.com/books?id=Ol84AgAAQBAJ&dq=Richard%2BFoster%2BThis%2Bside%2Bof%2Beternity%2C%2Bwe%2Bwill%2Bnever%2Bunravel%2Bthe%2Bgood%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2Bbad&source=gbs_navlinks_s.