A technician for an airline neglected to check the logs from previous flights and therefore failed to take action on a control problem that had recurred multiple times over the past days. His carelessness was one of the factors that led to the plane crashing on a subsequent flight.

An engineer failed to set the brakes on parked tanker cars which soon begin to roll of their own accord until, out of control, they skipped the tracks and exploded. His carelessness led to widespread death and destruction.
A truck driver became distracted by a problem with his trailer, failed to notice a stop sign, and sailed through an intersection at high speed, putting it immediately in the path of a fast-moving bus. His carelessness claimed the lives of many passengers and earned him a long sentence in prison.
Each of these people was called upon to account for his carelessness, for his neglect, and for all the devastation that came from it. And rightly so, for carelessness is no small matter. Carelessness is a moral issue that can have severe consequences.
Carelessness was on Jesus’ mind on a day when the religious authorities confronted him about his failure to keep their interpretation of the religious law. He remarked that their words were evil because their hearts were evil. “How can you speak good, when you are evil?” he asked. “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” And in that context he offered the most solemn of warnings. “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.”
Words have immense power—power to do such good and power to do such harm. Words can strengthen the weak or crush them, comfort the sorrowful or grieve them, relieve the burdened or weigh them down all the more. Words can be a taste of life or a savor of death, a scent of heaven or a whiff of hell. They can do the work of God or of the devil, serve the cause of Christ or of his enemies. Words are so wonderful and so terrible, so beautiful and so horrible, so precious and so dreadful.
Little wonder, then, that the Bible addresses our words so often and with such solemnity. For our words put a choice before us every day and in every moment. Every time we open our mouths, every time we swipe our screens, every time we tap our keyboards, we take to ourselves the power of life and death.
What we may need to be reminded of is that we will be held to account for our words—for all our words. There will be a reckoning not only for the words we intentionally used poorly or that we deliberately used to hurt others, but also for the words we used carelessly. We will be responsible before God for not only what was fully malicious, but also for what was merely negligent, apathetic, irresponsible, reckless, or impetuous.
For just as carelessness is a moral issue when it comes to transportation, it is a moral issue when it comes to communication. As carelessness can be expressed in actions, so too in speech. And as it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless performance of tasks, it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless uttering of words. For words can bring harm every bit as much as deeds.

Until the land was expropriated to make way for new developments, Oakville was home to an exceptional tropical fish store. At its center was a massive circular aquarium filled with sharks and other predatory fish, and once each week the employees would host a feeding frenzy that was open to the public. One of them would climb a ladder to the top of the tank and begin to toss pieces of meat to the creatures lurking below. No sooner did the flesh hit the surface and the blood begin to seep into the water, than the sharks went mad, thrashing, circling, fighting over the bits. Rarely did a piece make it all the way to the bottom before two, three, or four sharks were battling over it, shredding it, gobbling it down.

They could almost have been us—people who so often delight to tear one another apart, to focus on flaws more than virtues, to be critical rather than encouraging, harsh rather than tender, vindictive rather than merciful.
I recently found myself studying the Parable of the Good Samaritan and marveling at its example of mercy. Because that particular example is bound to a certain setting and context, I spent some time pondering the ways in which it is applicable to today—the ways in which in teaches people like you and me to show divine mercy rather than human ruthlessness. Let me offer a few.
We can show mercy toward people’s suffering. This is the most obvious category and the one that Jesus spoke of in his parable. As we see people in need—people who are destitute or downcast or sorrowing or suffering—it is right and good to feel compassion and to then act in love toward them. Like the priest, Levite, and Samaritan, we will just be going through life and in God’s providence he will provide opportunities where we see people who have some kind of want or some kind of need. And in those moments we ought to feel compassion for them and then be eager to extend mercy, perhaps in the form of comfort or a meal or a helping hand or money. There is infinite need in this world and, therefore, an infinite number of ways we can show mercy to those who suffer.
We can show mercy toward people’s souls. As we encounter people who don’t know Jesus, we can extend mercy by tending to their spiritual needs, which usually means alerting them to their spiritual need. Far more people know their financial poverty than their spiritual poverty. Don’t we feel a deep compassion toward those who do not know Jesus and who don’t even know that they need him? Don’t we have concern for them? Then we need to tell them about Jesus! We need to tell them about the perilous state of their souls! The duty of evangelism flows out of pity for those who do not know the God who is so merciful toward sinners.
We can show mercy toward people’s reputations. Solomon says “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,” but we sometimes find such delight in destroying a person’s name and lowering their reputation all the way to the gutter. Compassion calls us to feel the harm that is being done to them by having their reputation destroyed. We can show mercy by speaking well of people instead of speaking ill; we can show mercy by refusing to pass along gossip; we can show mercy by choosing to look for evidences of grace in a person rather than evidences of sinfulness; we can show mercy by refusing to share information that is unproven or just plain unnecessary. We can be merciful where others are being brutal and have compassion upon others by protecting and enhancing their good name. (For more on this see here.)
We can show mercy toward people’s weaknesses. God calls us to share the world, to share our homes, and to share our churches with people who are weak. Even setting aside their sinfulness, they are still beset by weaknesses. And we ought to be gentle and patient and merciful in those weaknesses. Wives should be merciful with their husband’s annoying habits; husbands should be merciful with their wife’s irritating foibles; Christians should patiently bear with church members who differ with them on matters of conscience or who have little knowledge of how to honor God or little understanding of the freedom the gospel offers us. Compassion calls us to feel love for them rather than apathy or frustration or hatred. It calls us to bear with them rather than rebuke them. It calls us to joyfully show mercy to them.
We can have mercy toward people’s sins. We will inevitably see people behave in sinful ways and sometimes even see them sin against us. And while our first thought is usually outrage and vindication, perhaps our first thought ought to be pity—to feel compassion for them in their sin, compassion that they are sinners. Sometimes mercy is overlooking an offense, simply setting it aside as if it never happened. The Bible says “it’s the glory of a man to overlook an offense”—to just leave it between that person and the Lord. Sometimes mercy is confronting an offense and in love helping people escape sinful habits and patterns that will lead them to destruction. Sometimes a situation truly does call for the full measure of justice. But I hope that our first instinct is toward mercy—to be merciful toward our fellow sinners.
So, my friend, be merciful toward those who are suffering, merciful toward those whose souls are in peril, merciful toward reputations, merciful toward the weak, and merciful toward sinners. This will sometimes call us to do what comes unnaturally and with difficulty, but we can have full confidence that we actually can do it for this reason: God asks us to do no more than he has already done—to extend mercy to those who are in desperate need.

You broaden your perspective on the Christian life when you diversify your reading—and perhaps especially when you read a healthy mix of older books to go along with newer ones. You come to realize that some topics and some themes remain constant while others rise for a time and then fade away.
In my reading of older books, I have come across a few family roles that were once lauded but are now seldom mentioned. One of them is the woman who would deliberately remain unmarried so she could care for her aging parents and other family members. In an era before retirement communities and nursing homes, this was regarded as a sacred calling, a life of sacrifice and service. When we hear an antiquated term like spinster we may think of someone who had the opportunity to get married pass her by, the reality may be that she chose a life of singleness so she could be the family carer. Though I have read celebrations of those women and their calling in historical writing, I am hard-pressed to think of an example in contemporary writing.
Another role that was once considered especially noble was the role of the step-parent. While today we tend to associate step-parents with divorce, in previous centuries they were almost exclusively associated with death and with either widow- or widowerhood. In an era in which lifespans were shorter and, therefore, a greater number of parents died while their children were still young, there was a distinct and honored role for these second or substitute parents. Economic and practical necessity often dictated that bereaved husbands and wives remarry very quickly after the death of a spouse. That new spouse would immediately become a substitute mother or father to children who had suffered a great loss.
Abraham Lincoln serves as a well-known example. His mother passed away when he was just 10 and his sister was only 12. The Lincoln home soon began to crumble without the care and influence of a woman. Their father Thomas was able to arrange a marriage of convenience with Sarah Bush Johnston who proved to be a kind and loving mother to her step-children. In so many ways, she shaped Lincoln into the man he would become, and he gladly honored her with the title “mother” and with words of praise and gratitude.
In my recent travels, I have had the privilege to meet several families that are of just this kind. A man or woman has suffered the heartbreaking loss of a spouse and has then rejoiced as God has provided a second husband, a second wife. In almost every case, this second spouse had previously been unmarried and had reluctantly accepted that, though they desired to marry, God had not provided a spouse. They had settled into a life of contented singleness, but then unexpectedly met this widow or widower and his or her family. And they had decided that this was God’s provision and God’s calling.
There are unique challenges that come to these people, to be certain. The woman who marries a man whose first wife has died marries someone who never fell out of love, who continues to love the wife who passed away. She marries someone who did not want to become unmarried, who, if he could have his way, would still be married to the wife of his youth. She marries someone knowing that he may need to be comforted on the day of his first wedding, of another woman’s birthday, of the anniversary of another woman’s death. Yet she refuses to succumb to jealousy or to see the first wife as a kind of threat. She accepts all this without offense and without resentment.
The man who marries a woman whose first husband has passed away marries someone who has children that are not his own, children who are of another father, children who, even if they come to love him and regard him as their dad, still love another man and wish they could know him, love him, and have him in their lives. He marries a woman who is grieving and his parenting begins with children who have had their hearts broken. But he accepts this with grace and understanding. He becomes a husband to the husbandless and a father to the fatherless.
I have had the joy of meeting so many who have joyfully accepted this role, who have embraced it, and who have sought to carry it out well.Share
The fact is, I don’t know of anyone who, as a young man or woman, dreamed of being a second husband or second wife or of anyone who dreamed of marrying into a family scarred by the death of a spouse and parent. Yet I have had the joy of meeting so many who have joyfully accepted this role, who have embraced it, and who have sought to carry it out well.
Hence, I thought it would be fitting today to draw attention to these second parents and second spouses, these God-given provisions for the needy and broken-hearted. I thought it would be fitting to commend them for joyfully identifying and accepting the role Providence offered to them. And I thought it would be fitting to raise up a cheer and a word of thanks in their honor.
(While the focus of this article was families that have suffered the loss of a spouse/parent, I gladly acknowledge that much of it applies equally to other situations, such as when a woman has been abandoned by her husband or a husband has been betrayed and divorced by his wife.)