One of my favorite Super Bowl commercials of the past was from IBM. We see a group of disgruntled office workers who have just been layed off huddled around a computer. They are indulging in a fantasy we’ve all had–telling off the boss because tomorrow it won’t matter. Having finished their highly insulting email, they click the send button. At that instant another worker bursts through the cubicle entrance, dancing with glee, and announcing that the layoffs are canceled. For one horrible second, the griping office drones stare at one another in horror. Then they simultaneously leap at the Ethernet cord trailing from the computer, as if they could catch the message before it got too far.

I’m sure that ad’s success had a lot to do with touching something we all wish we could do–hit the edit or delete button for hurtful comments we’ve made. Oh the times I wanted to catch my words in mid-air, step aside to the edit desk, and put the white-out to work. But, of course, we don’t have that luxury in life as we know it. The “rough draft” words go out and do their work. And then we try our best to recover the damage with “follow-up memos,” but it’s hard to make the hurt go away.

While I might feel helpless to repair the hurt I’ve done with my un-edited words, I’ve come to realize that there is something I can do when I receive them from others. It’s a way of bringing Christ-like love into the hazardous arena of human communications. What I want to try to do, with God’s help, is to perceive hurtful words as just a “rough draft” and have the grace to allow the person to work through to their final edit.

I say that realizing that the rough draft often reveals the true heart of the person. So often we say, “I didn’t mean to say…” when what we said was exactly what we really meant, just not what we would want the other person to hear. So rough draft words have their place. We are all called to be ministers to one another, and true heart-revelations help us see what the real needs of a person are. The challenge comes in using those revelations as a loving tool rather than a blunt weapon.

But I’m not speaking to the ministering or counseling situation right now. I’m talking about what dwells in my own heart after hurtful words have been spoken to me. That is the moment where I can choose grace and love; where I can realize that the speaker is a sinner grappling with redemption, and to quote the cliche: “God isn’t finished with them yet.” My hope is that the Holy Spirit will help me more and more respond in that moment in a way that allows that person the chance to work through to his or her “final edit.”

The greatest motivation to this kind of love response is the fact that, in Christ, God has wiped away our rough drafts and grades us only on the final edit of our lives. And the greatest news of all is that when he looks for that final copy, he sees the handwriting of his Son.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2004 at 10:02 am and is filed under Christian Community, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.