A Peccadillo isn’t an ancient armadillo with a beak. Peccadillo’s are the trivial offenses that are part of all human relationships. When you are in relationship you are vulnerable to the one’s you give your heart to. That vulnerability is impacted through peccadillo’s. The little offenses of life can chip away at the core of relationship. When left untended they can become splinters thatcreate festering wounds. Sometimes they are easily discerned sometimes not. I’ve learned the deeper the wounds the greater the care in bringing recovery and healing.
While little foolish things can be points of hurt and damage they can also become indicators of intimacy. Others may not know your secret peccadillo’s but your spouse learns them all. After 36+years, Cindy knows me through and through, and I know her. Yet, we deliberately love one another in spite of those things … and at times because of those things. On the stage of marriage your quirks and eccentricities become all too obvious …. and there’sto you. So it is with all human relationships.
A peccadillo may be as simple as a burp after a good meal or an incessant cough after being tickled. Or it could be how certain topics get the other wound up. It can also bemore sinister things: the silent treatment, or the diminishing of an emotion or affection toward each other. It may even morph intowithdrawing the heart from one another. We either deal with such things by longsuffering or forgiveness. When these transgressions become wounds they mayturn into the small foxes that have power to destroy sweet relationships.
How often I’ve seen little things ruin fruitful relationships in our churches. As it goes in marriage so it goes in the church. The mystery of the marriage (two becoming one) is the mystery of the Church (many becoming one). One thing we must learn is how to put up with one another. I remember an old brother that use to hold his watch arm up when the pastor ran a few minutes long on Sunday. Put up with him or run him off. How about that guy who sang off key louder than anyone else in the choir. Help him, correct him, but for goodness sakes don’t reject him. We will never maintain healthy marriages or Churches unless we learn that peccadillo’s are part of life.
Only by tolerance and deliberate love can we experience true unity. I believe in holiness. I certainly don’t advocate gross sin in the congregations. I have led corporate discipline with a broken heart. However, for too long the “Church” has been destroyed by critical eyes and judgmental hearts. We break covenant over trivial things. Let us learn to bear with one another and love one another in this hour and the marvelous journey of the “Kingdom”.
I love you Church,
Bro Cleve
