“I’m not asking you to do a hard thing!” I loudly exclaimed to my thirdborn through his closed bedroom door one Sunday morning as we ran late for church. Frustration and anger were mounting on both sides of the barrier.

I was not asking my 14 year old to do a hard thing. Or so I thought as my voice raised a few decibels, failing to show the love that existed inside me for this priceless son.

All I wanted was for him to put on a particular pair of khaki pants. How hard was that? He had literally had them on a few minutes earlier!

In recent weeks, my 9th grader has finally been gaining some inches. Figuring out which pants in the closet to bid adieu and which ones in the storage to welcome in has been a struggle lately. Mostly, he wears shorts and is able to avoid the inevitable need to reach a solution. Better planning the night before would have alleviated the current Sunday morning battle, but I apparently experienced amnesia and thought all would work out peacefully after sunrise. Things were not working out peacefully. Not at all. And over a pair of pants. This was ridiculous!

I am by no means the type of parent that controls everything my child wears. However, at times I give input – for example, when I spy a highwater one too many weeks in a row – and this happened to be one of those unfortunate occasions. When I said put on the khaki pants, he decided, for reasons beyond my comprehension, to intentionally grab a pair of jeans instead. Under normal circumstances, jeans would have been no problem at all, but in this particular instance jeans meant disobedience. My toleration for disobedience is low.

Thankfully, he heeded my emphatic command, took off the jeans and put on the khaki pants, which were long enough for his growing physique. As I made a mental note that we had to figure out this whole pants crises soon, we left in a bit of a huff for church. I wonder how many other Christians arrived that day also already humbly reminded of their lack of perfection and deep need for Christ’s perfect sacrifice.

At some point within a couple hours of being gathered with God’s people, it suddenly dawned on me with crystal clarity that I actually had asked my son to do a hard thing. I had asked him to deny himself and obey an authority figure. Is that not incredibly hard to do at times? How many of us have an untarnished record of respectfully obeying our boss, church elders, government, and HOA?

As we walked out to the car after the gathering, I asked my son’s forgiveness for claiming putting on the pants that morning was not a hard thing. I explained it was hard. Very hard. Instantly he forgave me and also asked forgiveness for disobeying, admitting he had purposely put on the jeans instead of the khaki pants. Praise God, beautiful relationship repair had occurred and I had been reminded of a vital truth.

How often in our interactions with others do we forget the reality that denying self is hard every single time for every single person? I unintentionally did not speak truth to my son. I stand corrected. Dying to self is hard. Very hard.

In Luke 9:23-25, Jesus “said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?’”

I want to thank my son for allowing me to share our less than stellar moment with the world. I pray it helps us all be more gracious with one another as we remember that denying self is no easy feat.