Pettiness is a poison of the heart …

It’s said that a person’s dying words are some of the most important they ever speak. That’s because the moment is a most sober one, giving way to profound thought.

Dr. Samuel Palmer Brooks was president of Baylor University in Texas from 1902 until his death in 1931. On his deathbed he wrote a message to the senior class of 1931 which has become immortal to the students of Baylor:

I stand on the border of mortal life but I face eternal life. I look backward to the years of the past to see all pettiness, all triviality, shrink into nothing and disappear. Adverse criticism has no meaning now, only the worthwhile things, the constructive things that have built for the good of mankind and the glory of God count now. There is beauty, there is joy, and there is laughter in life — as there ought to be, but remember, my students, not to regard lightly nor to ridicule the sacred things, those worthwhile things. Hold them dear, cherish them, for they alone will sustain you in the end, and remember, too, that only through work and oft-times through hardships may they be attained. But the compensation of blessing and sweetness at the last will glorify every hour of work and every heartache from hardship.

When you have the lens of being at the end of life, you can look back and see just how vile and worthless were every moment of PETTINESS in your life.

We human beings are all too good at pettiness, that act of poisoning our minds and hearts with making large and important the insignificant.

Don’t like the smallest phrase uttered by someone?

Don’t like how someone leads, or doesn’t lead?

Don’t like the facial expression of someone, or what someone did or didn’t do?

Then, like some, respond by blowing up these and other imagined (or real) sleights to huge, unmanageable proportions that take over your thoughts and passions.

That’s pettiness.

People leave churches, stop supporting ministries, quit serving, and expel people from their lives because of pettiness — making too much over something small.

When we are petty, we WANT to hold something against someone and indulge in grudges. But such behavior is unbecoming of a follower of Christ. The Apostle Peter was smart enough to know that, but being a man prone to pettiness, he looked for a loophole by asking Jesus a question …

“Then Peter came to him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’” Matthew 18:21.

Peter imagined that surely there was a limit to putting up with a person, a time when he could stop forgiving and start indulging in petty grudges. The answer Jesus gave would burst such a thought bubble …

“’No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!'” Matthew 18:22.

Jesus would go on to tell a story (Matthew 18:23-35) that would give Peter no doubt about the necessity for forgiveness, meaning there is never a time for pettiness in the minds and hearts of those who follow Jesus.

But that doesn’t stop many of us from being petty, does it? So much is not accomplished for the kingdom of God due to pettiness among people professing to be Christians.

Pastor Toby Sumpter suggests six key reasons why some persist on being petty:

1. You’re self-righteous.
2. There’s a log in your eye.
3. You’re insecure.
4. You’re guilty.
5. You don’t understand grace.
6. You don’t read the story (take time to understand context).

Whatever the excuse, there is no reason, no justification, for petty thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Do you hamper your walk with Christ, your fellowship in the church, your relationships with others, or your service to the kingdom, with petty thinking and behavior?

Scotty