“Get out of my room,” Hollie yelled as she slammed her door so hard it shook the walls.

Concerned that someone was going to lose a finger, I stopped what I was doing in the kitchen to check out what was brewing upstairs. In less than fifteen minutes, I was taking Katie and Hollie to a movie they’d been waiting for more than a month to see. I thought the girls would be grateful. Instead their behavior was awful as my oldest re-entered the kill zone to do battle with her sister.

“Stop fighting!” I called up from where I stood at the bottom of the stairs.

Oblivious to my request, the girls continued to argue until one slapped the other and I knew: It was time to intervene.

“Ow!” Katie cried out as I raced upstairs to put an end to the skirmish.

 “What’s going on?”

“Hollie ripped my shirt,” Katie announced while holding it out for me to see.

 “She wouldn’t get off my bed when I was trying to make it,” my youngest defended.

“So you tore the new sweater your sister got for her birthday?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Hollie replied as if that exonerated her from the crime.

My ten-year-old had a habit of excusing her actions while holding other people accountable for theirs. Dealing with this double-standard meant presenting her with a question: “Why is it when you accidentally do something wrong, I’m not supposed to get mad; but when Katie unintentionally bothers you, it’s okay to get even?”

“Because she’s my sister,” Hollie said with a smirk.

My daughter’s unapologetic attitude left me speechless—for a few seconds. Then I remembered something Dr. James Dobson said several years ago during a radio broadcast that aired one evening while I was driving home from work. Although I only remember a small part of the message, it’s similar to a statement that Dr. Dobson made in an article on Focus on the Family’s website troubledwith.com: “Once children understand what is expected, they should be held accountable for behaving accordingly. That sounds easy, but as we have seen, most children will assault the authority of their elders. … Like a military general before a battle, they will calculate the potential risk, marshal their forces and attack the enemy with guns blazing.”[i]

“When those nose-to-nose confrontations occur between generations,” Dr. Dobson added, “it is extremely important for the adult to win decisively and confidently. The children have made it clear that they're looking for a fight, and their parents would be wise not to disappoint them!”[ii]

I was not about to disappoint Hollie as we stared each other down like two urban cowgirls in a face-off at high noon. My weapon of choice was the Bible as I fired off this warning from James 2:13: “Do you remember when I told you last week that judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful?”

Hollie said nothing as she smoothed the comforter on her bed.

“It means that you can’t expect to be forgiven when you mess up if you’re not willing to do the same for your sister,” I explained.

Still nothing.

Determined to get my point across, I made even myself uncomfortable when I presented her with the following example: “I’m not going to hit you for ripping Katie’s sweater, but if you keep lashing out at your sister, that’s what you're telling me to do. Is that really what you want?”

Hollie shook her head.

The Bible makes it clear that when we judge others, we cause God to be harder on us.[iii] No parent wants a child to learn this lesson the hard way, including God. We know this from 2 Peter 3:9 where the apostle wrote this about our heavenly father's tolerance of sin: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

What people in New Testament times saw as permissive parenting was really a biblical example of divine patience. Nearly two thousand years later, we still jump to the wrong conclusion whenever we question God's decision not to take action against those who are causing us pain.

God wants us to be tolerant of others because we need Him to be patient with us. Why, then, was I pushing Hollie to see the error of her ways right now?

I didn’t have an answer when I started down the stairs. What I did have was a final warning as I looked back to say: “You need to make things right with your sister.”

To my relief, Hollie walked into Katie’s room before I reached the first landing to say that she was sorry. Katie reciprocated with a surprise apology of her own. Hearing my oldest confess to playing a part in the drama that unfolded made me realize that I’d been too hard on Hollie.

Sometimes I think we spend so much time assigning blame that we end up bearing some of it ourselves. Dr. Kevin Leman agreed in his book Have a New Kid by Friday when he made the following statement about judging others: “Parents spend a significant amount of time sorting out who started it. But consider this:  fighting is an act of cooperation. It's not about who threw the first punch.”[iv]

“That means instead of you trying to sort out who said or did what,” Leman added, “both children involved need to be removed from the scene and taken to a room with the door closed, where just the two of them stare at each other until the problem is worked out.”[v]

Although Katie and Hollie had resolved their issues by the time we left for the movie, I was still on edge as I backed my van out of the driveway. The girls’ argumentative attitudes had rubbed off, leading me to conclude that moods are a lot like colds as they spread from one person to another until everyone is infected. I definitely had a case of attitude sickness as I lectured my daughters on how disappointed I was by their latest outburst.

“Can we just start over?” my daughters begged.

I wanted to forgive them but their fighting had become a daily occurrence and I … was fed up. Knowing how frustrating it is to watch children make the same mistakes again and again makes me wonder: Does God ever reach the point when He’s fed up with us?

From what I’ve read of the Old Testament, the answer is: “Yes.” In Genesis chapter six, for example, people were in such a sinful state that God decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth with the exception of Noah and his family.[vi] Moses wrote about God’s wrath in verses five and six when he said: “The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”

These verses affirmed my belief that if you look hard enough, you’ll find pain behind every harsh word and undesirable consequence—even God’s. You’ll also find the promise of a new beginning. The Bible is filled with stories of redemption where our creator, in His mercy, gave sinners the chance to start over. As his representatives on earth, our challenge is to do the same.