Next-Level Living

 

Galatians 6:1-10 - Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Forgiveness and restoration, sharing burdens, taking care of the weak, resisting arrogance and comparison, focus on making a contribution, give back, In short do all the good you can and don’t worry about the rest. It will pay off

At the end of his letter, just before he makes drives home the point about the division of over Torah law (which will talk about tomorrow), Paul gives a healthy dose of what might seem to be unrelated bits of advice.  Work at forgiving and restoring those who have made mistakes.  Take care of each other, especially the weak.  Resist arrogance and comparison; they are both toxic.  Focus instead on doing what only you can do for the community.  Whatever skills and wisdom you have gained from others, be sure to pass it on to others.  Do good and trust that it will pay off.  This collection of prescriptions reminds me of John Wesley’s famous saying about doing good; “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

The thread that runs through all of these seemingly disjointed instructions is life is community.  You can hear Paul’s heart for the life of the little communities he’s writing to be healthy and vibrant.  To hear about the toxic divisions that have emerged among these people he loves is breaking his heart.  He’s trying to convince them that it doesn’t have to be this way.  The answer to resolving this is to raise their level of consciousness. 

                The default level of consciousness is to think about life as my life. Do I have what I need and/or want?  Am I happy?  Am I being treated fairly?  What is my opinion on a certain matter?  How can I solve the problems I am experiencing?  I could go on and on, but I’m thinking you get the idea.  My default consciousness is self-referencing.  Paul is calling the Galatians to adopt the next level of consciousness – a communal consciousness.  The questions we ask at this level of consciousness change.  What does the community need?  Are there people that are struggling that need our help?  What is the role that I can play in this community that is really needed right now?  Do we have unity?  What’s most important for us right now?  It is a shift from “I” thinking to “we” thinking.  It’s seems very subtle but the effect is revolutionary.  It’s also how Jesus lived and calls us to live. 

The majority of people in Jesus-centered communities that thrive have made this shift.  They think of individual resources as community resources.  They think of their time as belonging to something bigger than themselves.  Their fulfillment and happiness are found in life together.   Furthermore, they find that this is a more joy-producing and fulfilling life than was possible when they were living for themselves.   This next-level consciousness unlocks the beautiful combination of freedom and love for God and others.   

 

Questions:  Try to observe your thought life today.  What do you notice about the reference-point for the majority of what you think about?  What is the interplay between “I” and “We” consciousness?

 

Prayer:  Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer God, you have called us to life together with you and others.  Help us see how we may live into this way of being in the world.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the helpers today.  You can decide who those people are and pray for them.

 

Song:  Life Together – Geoff Moore & the Distance

Who's First in Forgiveness?

Mark 11:25(and 26), CEB - And whenever you stand up to pray, if you have something against anyone, forgive so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your wrongdoings.”

 

Right away, you will notice that I did not include v. 26 in today’s reading even though I mention it in the heading.  This is because v.26 is not in most of the manuscripts from which Mark is translated.  The scholarly consensus is that it was added later by a scribe who thought that it belonged there for some reason that of which we are not aware.  In any case, I defer in most cases to scholarly consensus, so I have not included v.26. In any v. 25 is difficult enough.

Reading it a face value, this verse could be taken to mean that God’s forgiveness of us depends on our first forgiving others.  And making that assumption also assumes that we somehow have the power to extract God’s forgiveness through first forgiving others.  We do not.  God is always first in forgiveness.  If God does not freely choose to forgive us, we remain unforgiven.  So if we can’t manipulate God’s forgiveness with our own, what does this saying mean?

Though God is first to offer forgiveness, we’re not really capable of fully understanding or receiving that forgiveness until we offer it ourselves.  To understand forgiveness more fully, we have to experience both sides of it – the side of the forgiven and the side of the forgiver.  We are more inclined to hold on to offenses until we realize that letting go of offenses actually frees us even more than it frees the offender.  When we relinquish the need to retain others sins against us, we become more free to more fully embrace the reality that our sins have also been relinquished by God.  Just as we learn more about the fullness of love by loving, we learn more about the fullness of forgiveness by forgiving.  To love is to forgive and to forgive is to love.

 

Question:  What have learned about forgiveness by forgiving?

 

Prayer:  God, it feels counterintuitive to choose forgiveness until we have done it many times.  But as we do it, help us experience the fullness of how in character it is for You to forgive us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to place on your heart a person that you need to forgive today.

 

Song:  I Forgive You – Kelly Pickler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFC20P25mZ4

The Connection Between Healing & Forgiveness

 Before I begin the devotional, a quick program note...

More often lately, I feel like I'm in the position of having to apologize for missing a day on these posts.  This is because my implicit promise to all of you is that I would publish these devotionals five days a week.  While that remains my goal, I do want to stipulate that sometimes I will not be able to make good on that and I will miss a day.  I'm working at giving myself some grace when that happens and not feeling pressure to use my off-days to make up posts I miss.  I'm asking you to give me that grace as well.  I thank you in advance.


Mark 2:1-12 - A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.  They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.  Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?  Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man,  “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”  He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
 
This is not just another healing story.  There are several places in this gospel where Mark says something to the effect, “and Jesus healed many people.”  But it’s important to pay attention when we encounter a healing story with all the details, for the details hold truth that Mark is trying to point out. 
So in this remarkable story, Jesus is speaking to a house so jammed full of people that no one can get in or out.  So the four men carrying the paralyzed man realize that the only way they are going to get to Jesus is to lower their friend through the roof.  They do just that, and as they do, Jesus says something very peculiar.  Or maybe to be more precise, he DOESN’T say what we would expect in this case.  He doesn’t say, “you’re healed,” to the paralyzed man. 
Instead, “he says, “your sins are forgiven.”    
This ruffles some feathers, but we’ll come back to that in a minute.  Why would Jesus forgive the sins of a man in need of healing?  Could it be that the healing the man needed would come from first being freed from the guilt that had literally paralyzed him?  I have read of many people who have been healed of physical ailments and diseases after finding a way to reconcile and redeem the mistakes of the past.  In some cases, it was the afflicted person finally being released from the guilt of the past.  In other cases, it was the afflicted that found a way to forgive something in the past that seemed impossible to forgive before.  In both types of situations, the spiritual healing of the past led to physical healing in the present. 
Back to the ruffled feathers.  The religious leaders present at this event take issue with Jesus’s authority to forgive sins.  Their objection that only God can forgive sins is valid.  Jesus knows this and He addresses it by something else only God can do – He heals the paralyzed man.   More accurately, he tells the man that has already received healing to get up and walk. 
The crowd responds by saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
By “this,” they don’t mean the healing of someone.  For they have already seen Jesus heal many before this day.  The reason the house is packed full of people is that Jesus has already gained a huge following by healing many people.  What the crowd is amazed by is not the healing, but that the healing that came through the forgiveness of sins.
Here’s something even more amazing.  We have this same power when we forgive.  Sometimes, the brokenness of the past literally takes up residence in our bodies, sometimes even festering into diseases and/or other physical maladies.  Let me be clear;  I am in no way willing to claim that all illness and physical brokenness can be traced to unforgiveness.  But I have simply seen cases where this is the case.  Mark is telling us about one such instance today.  So when we are able to let go and forgive, it has the potential to bring restoration and health beyond just our spirit and emotions.
 
Question:  Is it possible that brokenness in your past has taken up residence in your body?
 
Prayer:  Jesus, sometimes we know in our heads that you have offered us forgiveness, but for whatever reason, we have not been able to accept that gracious gift.    Help us let go and allow the healing to begin.  Help us share the healing power of forgiveness with each other.
 
Prayer Focus:  Pray for the people of Cuba who are right now experiencing a dangerous hurricane.
 
Song:  Set Me Free – Casting Crowns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2HwtWLokSc

One of the Best Stories in the Bible About Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Genesis 42-47 (If you have the time, it is worth the read!)

 

Today we fast forward to the end of the Joseph story where he is reconciled to his brothers and reunited with his Father. This is one of the most beautiful stories of forgiveness and reconciliation in the Bible. I say forgiveness and reconciliation because they are not the same. As we have talked about before, you can forgive someone without restoring a relationship with them. It is clear in these chapters for today that Joseph was still working on both.

Forgiveness comes first. In chapter 42, we see the hurt and anger that Joseph has harbored all his life come out when he sees his brothers approaching him to buy grain. It is not until he overhears his brothers regretting their actions against him that his heart seems to begin to change. Over the course of the next few chapters, Joseph lets go of his resentment and forgives. That would be significant on its own.

But then he begins to check out whether his brothers are ready to reconcile. He puts them through a series of “tests” to see if they are willing to be honest with him. You can forgive someone even without their cooperation, but reconciliation requires the honest effort of all parties. Joseph sees that his brothers are now being honest with him and so he eventually reveals who he is, letting go of his last bit of resistance to reconciliation. This leads to Joseph being reconciled to his Father, something that never happens if he is not willing to reconcile.

This story of forgiveness and reconciliation is messy. Most stories of forgiveness and reconciliation are. It is some of the hardest spiritual and emotional work we will ever do. But if we don’t do it the work, some outcomes that we long for will never happen. I strongly recommend the journey.

 

Prayer: Lord help us get free from our resentments and deep-seated anger. Help us to see the joy that could be ours if we submit to the journey with your help. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus: Pray for forgiveness and healing for our divided nation.

 

Song: Toby Mac – Forgiveness (ft. Lecrae)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfkhqpl81NA

Samson – Trapped in the Cycle of Revenge

Read Judges 14-16 (I know this a long reading, but it’s worth it)

 

I hope were able to read about Samson’s exploits.  The reason I asked you to read the whole thing is purposeful.  When you read all of it, it’s easier to see the thread that runs through Samson’s entire life – revenge.  He is wronged and so he wrongs those who wronged him.  They retaliate and then he retaliates even more violently.  His last dying act is to bring a building down on his enemies and himself.  He literally lived and died in the cycle of revenge.

As I suggested yesterday, this is not heroic; it’s tragic.  However, too many people live a much less dramatic version of this cycle throughout their lives.  Tit for tat, eye for an eye, slight for slight, and hit and hit back.  Another version of this cycle is just as toxic.  In this scenario, the victim never retaliates but simply burns with hurt and anger indefinitely.  Nurturing the resentment becomes a way of life. 

The antidote to this poisonous pattern is forgiveness.  Instead of multiplying the pain, forgiveness begins to heal it.  You don’t have become best friends with the offender.  You might not even have a future relationship.  But forgiveness allows you to get free from the cancerous venom of bitterness. 

As I sometimes do, I’ll end with a challenge.  I invite you to think about an injustice dealt to you that you have not forgiven.  Take some time to reflect on what harboring that offense has gotten you.  As you think about it, you might even be able to feel in your body where that tension has taken up residence.  My challenge is this: make the conscious choice to forgive.  Most likely, this will take some time.  But as you stay committed to the process, I believe you will begin to notice a change in yourself.  That change is the arrival of freedom; welcome and embrace it.

The ultimate goal is the extreme opposite of Samson – to one day die with no resentments, no one to “pay back.”  Begin to forgive today.

 

Prayer:  God, help me to see the path of forgiveness for ___________.  It seems impossible to me, but nothing is impossible for you.  Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are still without work to pay their bills.

 

Song:  Something a little different today. This is a brief guided meditation on forgiveness

Forgiveness: Christian Meditation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOlLdYnGE4k

Making Amends

Matthew 5:23-24, NIV - “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

 

Matthew 25:40, NIV - ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 

                As we wind up our series on forgiveness this week, we come to the topic of making amends.  We’ve talked about God’s forgiveness of us, us forgiving others, and even us forgiving God.  But what do we do when we have received forgiveness from others or God.  The appropriate thing to do is to make amends.  In our relationships with other humans, making amends can even be the appropriate thing to do when the person we have hurt has not forgiven us.  Making amends, in these cases, can even help the other person be more receptive to forgiving you.  It should be noted that making amends is NOT a way to manipulate the other into forgiving you.  Making amends requires a genuine desire to benefit those we have hurt.

                But what exactly is making amends?  Biblically speaking, it is very close to the biblical notion of repentance.  In the original biblical language Greek, repent means “to turn away.”  When we repent, we turn away from the hurtful behavior.  We work not to repeat the actions that harmed others.  So to apply this to the notion of “making amends,” this means that we begin to act towards the person we hurt in ways that demonstrate our commitment to not hurting them again.  Certainly showing kindness, empathy, and compassion is part of this, but the heart of making amends is helping the other to see that we know what we did was wrong.  We know it caused harm and our actions show that we are doing all we can not to repeat the behavior. 

                Note the urgency of Jesus’s instruction in the first scripture above that is taken from the Sermon on the Mount.  Why would one not offer a gift to God (worship) before making every effort to make amends with those who have something against us.  The urgency comes from the fact that our relationships with others have a direct influence on our relationship with God.  The second scripture above also makes this point.  The way you treat others is, in effect, the way you treat God.  The importance of making amends is not only for improving our relations with people.  It is a way of improving our relationship with God. 

                As I said before, the purpose of making amends is NOT to extract forgiveness from others.  Therefore, even if our efforts to make amends with others does not result in a restored relationship with the other person, genuinely knowing we have done all we can to try and repair our human relationships still improves our relationship with God.  It also sets us up for better relationships with other people because we have changed our hurtful behavior.  Making amends where we have made mistkes is part of healthy spiritual, emotional, and relational growth.  It is part of becoming a better version of ourselves.

 

Question:  Thinking about someone who you have hurt in the past, is there something you need to do to demonstrate your commitment to not repeating the offense?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank You for your instruction in making amends.  However, the nitty-gritty of exactly how to do it in specific relationships is really heard.  Guide my heart to know how I can “turn away” from the behavior(s) that harmed the other and the courage to replace those mistakes with action that helps assure the other that I am committed to change.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who have lost a loved one recently.

 

Song:  Turn My Heart – Lynn DeShazo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QhJKj4e8o4

The Sacred “Pause Button”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, CEB -  I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live—by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by clinging to him.

 

“Between Stimulus and Response There Is a Space. In That Space Is Our Power To Choose Our Response”                                  Stephen Covey, quoting an unknown author

 

                When I was a teenager, the primary way to listen to audio recordings (music, lectures, etc) was cassette tape.  I actually still have a cassette player and several cassettes.  Over the years, I had several players and one of the common problems I had with them is that eventually, the “pause” button would break.  Sometimes, I think we have the same challenge with our actions.  Our pause button is either broken or we are not even aware that we have the ability to pause before reacting to a situation. 

Stephen Covey, in his many writings, made the above quote popular, though he claimed that he did not author the wisdom.  In any case, it is a fact.  Whatever happens to us, we have a choice as to how we act in response.  I have caught myself using the phrase, “it was just an automatic reaction,” when trying to justify the way I acted.  The reality is that I made a choice to act though it was a unaware choice. 

The remedy for this is (re)discovering our “pause” button.  When we are “triggered,” by something someone does, we can push pause, by taking a long intention breath.  This gives us some space to consider how we will act (or not act as the case may be) as we respond to the stimulus.  This is where the scripture above comes into play.  We can choose blessings or curses.  We can choose in alignment with the values we have learned from our faith and wisdom traditions.  We can take a moment to remember our connection to God’s Spirit and allow ourselves to be guided by divine image placed in us by God. 

This has implications for the forgiveness process.  Hurts that we have experienced in the past tend to replay in our mind every time we remember the offense.  We relive the hurt as we “replay the tape” in our head once again.  The forgiveness process calls for pushing “pause” on these old recordings and thus, creating the space to make a more life-giving choice.  Acting in life-affirming ways towards those who have hurt us begins to erase those old tapes over time.  We most likely will always remember the offense, but the event will lose it’s power to trigger us.  We become more and more free.

 

Question:  Are there some old but familiar recordings that you need to “push pause” on in order to create space for a new response?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for the gift of choice.  Keep this gift ever before us in the moments/spaces where we choose between blessings and curses.  Help us discern and act in alignment with the divine image You have placed within us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for school-age children and school personnel who are finishing up another school year in the shadow of yet another mass school shooting.

 

Song:  Choose Life – Big Tent Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4fC4WFCIU

No Footholds

 

Ephesians 4:27, 29-32, The Message - Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you

 

                I like hiking/climbing up mountains.  Living in Florida, I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like, but even so, I’ve done enough of it that some friends have given me the nickname, “mountain goat.”  One thing I’ve learned about climbing mountains is that, if you are going to get to the top, you need footholds.  Those holes and ledges on the mountain are what give you the leverage to go higher.

                The apostle Paul uses this foothold image to show how evil can rise up within us if we allow it.  We provide footholds for “the devil” when we let our anger drive our actions towards vengeance. As soon as we return offense for offense, we make it all that much easier for those offenses to multiply.  The danger is that, eventually, vengeance consumes us. 

                This is why controlling how we act when others hurt us is such an important component of the forgiveness process.  It’s so tempting sometimes to return evil for evil, but finding a way to act honorably towards those who hurt us can deny the expansion of the offense in our hearts and in our relationships.  God’s Spirit within us can help us with this difficult task, but the choice is ours.  Furthermore, when we choose to give footholds to negativity and malice, the Spirit’s influence on us is diminished.  When that happens, even more opportunity for the devil is created. 

                The forgiveness practice and process denies these footholds by refusing to return offense for offense.  This can strengthen the influence of the Spirit in us and help us move toward healing, freedom, and wholeness.  It helps us have a heart at peace instead of a heart at war.  We become more like the God who has refused to return our rebellion and offense with the like.  We have been forgiven and so we in turn, commit ourselves to forgiving. Tomorrow, we will talk about a technique that can help us react more honorably when we are tempted to create a foothold for evil.

 

Question:  Can you think of a situation that got worse because of the rash way in which you reacted?  What would that situation have looked like if you had acted more honorably?

 

Prayer:  God, help us be aware of the footholds we have given to negativity, resentment, and vengeance in our heart and relationships.  Show us the honorable path forward.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are falling behind on their bills because of the changing economic conditions.

 

Song:  Brandon Heath - The Light In Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdAKabU3nOM

Letting God Do the God Things

 

Romans 12:17-19, The Message - Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

 

The goal of forgiveness is healing and freedom – for you and for your relationships.  We keep repeating this because it’s important to keep in mind when you are working the forgiveness process.  If the benefits of healing and freedom for you is the goal, then it makes sense that doing things that do not promote healing and freedom would be counterproductive.  This is why revenge/payback never accomplishes the goal.  Adding more hurt/punishment/negativity to the equation pushes healing and freedom further away. 

This is why God instructs us, “I’ll take care of that.”  God wants our healing and freedom as well, so God pleads with us to not self-sabotage the forgiveness process with revenge.  Instead, God instructs us to replace those vengeful fantasies and actions with actions that promote healing and freedom.  Look for beauty in the other, which we talked about last week when we discussed rediscovering the humanity/commonality of the offender.  Work on making peace with the offender and promoting peace in your own heart.  Leave judgement and justice, which are God activities to God. 

 

Questions:  What do you want more of in your heart and your relationships? What would it look like for you to do more of that and less of what you don’t want in your heart and relationships?

 

Prayer:  Lord,  show me the current state of my heart.  Where there is negativity and hopes for revenge, help me replace them with thoughts and actions that promote peace, healing, and freedom.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the victims and families of the multiple acts of mass violence in our country in the last week.

 

Video:  Instead of a song today, I’m sharing a video about looking at the content of our heart.  I hope you are helped by it as I was.

What Is A Heart At War? - Wilderness Therapy at Anasazi Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o3LLDJUQhs          

Components of Forgiveness – You Gotta Want It

 

Matthew 13:15, CEB - For this people’s senses have become calloused, and they’ve become hard of hearing, and they’ve shut their eyes so that they won’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their minds, and change their hearts and lives that I may heal them.

 

                This seems abundantly obvious, but in order to forgive someone, you have want to forgive.  Quite often, this is a serious challenge.  In a very real way, refusing to forgive someone feels right.  After all, they did wrong/hurtful.  It is even reasonable to hold on to offense in the presence of wrong.  Many times, we do not want to forgive. And if you do not want to forgive, you will not forgive.  The will to forgive is an essential component of forgiveness. 

                But if we don’t have the will to forgive, how do we develop it?  We’ve talked about some the ways we do this in previous devotionals in this series on forgiveness.  One potential mind-changing realization is that forgiveness is good for us.   There are physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and relational benefits when we learn to forgive.  When we become convinced that forgiveness will help us in all these ways, our reluctance to forgive can be weakened.

                While I was getting my Master’s degree, I was part of a Clinical Pastoral Education(CPE) internship working as a Chaplain in a children’s hospital for a summer.  Part of the program was weekly counseling sessions with my supervisor.  In one of these sessions, my counselor and I were discussing a coping mechanism that I had when I encountered intense feelings of grief.  I expressed both a desire to change and a seeming powerlessness to do so.  My supervisor said something to me at that moment that I will never forget; “Eric, you will never change that defense mechanism until the pain of keeping it in place exceeds the pain you are avoiding.” She was right.  Later that summer, I realized my defense mechanism was actually causing me more pain than engaging the grief I encountered in my work in the hospital.  This realization helped me gain the will to change my approach. 

                Part of wanting to forgive is acknowledging the pain that not forgiving is causing us.  It actually the flip-side of looking at the benefits of forgiveness. We look at how we are suffering because we have not been willing to forgive.  The toxicity of unforgiveness has a cumulative effect on us just as the benefits of forgiveness bring cumulative benefits to our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relational health.  If examining the benefits of forgiveness is not enough to move the needle of your will towards wanting to forgive, consider the costs to continuing in unforgiveness.

 

Questions:  Consider an offense that, at this point, you have not been able to forgive.  Forgetting about the offender for a moment, what would it look like for you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially for you to forgive the offense?  What is it costing you not to forgive?

 

Prayer:  Give us a clear picture of what it is costing us to continue in unforgiveness Lord.  Show us a vision for what life could be like if we could get free of the hurts of the past. Heal us Great Physician. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are being diagnosed with COVID this week as cases are rising again.

 

Song:  Don’t Let Your Heart Be Hardened – Petra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNh1IyFdvM

The Components of Forgiveness – Part 1 – Rediscovering Common Humanity

 

I’m back from vacation.  Thanks for allowing me the chance to take a breather.  I know you didn’t have a choice in the matter, but I thank you anyway. 😉

 

Philippians 2:5-8, The Message - Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

 

Breaking how to forgive down into steps would be a little misleading.  The “steps” of forgiveness rarely occur in any specific order.  Sometimes, the steps have to be repeated.  Using a mental checklist for these would usually bring frustration.  So instead, I prefer to talk about the components of forgiveness.  When you are able to forgive someone, these components are part of the process.  Working to bring all of these components together is a better way to describe the practice.  Today we will talk about one of them – (re)discovering the common humanity of the offender.

When someone hurts us, there is a tendency to put them in a different category than ourselves.  Many times, this isn’t really a conscious thing but sometimes it is. A simple example is when I label someone “a jerk” (you can substitute you own preferred derogatory label here).  Implicit in me beginning to think of them as a jerk is that I, on the contrary, am NOT a jerk.  They are different from me.  I would not do what they have done, so I am not a jerk and they are.  I belong in a “better” category than that offender because I am not a jerk.

Putting someone in a lower category from myself has a name; the name is judgement.  I have judged my offender to be somehow less than myself.  Here’s where the problem comes in.  Judgement or categorizations of the value of other human beings is not an activity I am well suited to do.  After all, I am a human being.  I am biased at best.  This is why God says leave judgement to God.  God, unlike me, is well suited to make value judgements about human beings.  First, God IS in a higher category than us.  Second, God knows what it’s like to be a human because God become one named Jesus.  Jesus is fully God and fully human simultaneously.  God voluntarily put Godself in the same category as us. 

God perfectly models for us what this aspect of forgiveness looks like.  God discovers what it’s like to be a human being.  Instead of separating form us, God joins us.  An essential component of forgiveness is doing this same thing with our offender(s).  If we are able to be completely honest with ourselves, we have been “jerky” at times too.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly the same jerkiness that the other displayed, but it was jerkiness to be sure.  Maybe, in their same circumstances, we could have found ourselves doing the same thing they did.  After all, we are all human. 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another component of forgiveness, but for today, consider these questions.

 

Questions:  Do you have labels for people that have hurt you that you would not apply to yourself?  Have you considered how it might be possible, given different circumstances, for you to do the same thing that your offender did? 

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank you for becoming human like me.  You had every right to remain separated from me, but you chose to join me instead.  Show me what it would look like to remove the separated label I have placed on people that have hurt me.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who do jobs everyday you could never see yourself doing.  Amen.

 

Song:  Judge Not – Bob Marley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLaxu-uYlk

The Discipline of Forgiveness

 

1 Timothy 4:7-10, The Message - Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we’ve thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We’re banking on the living God, Savior of all men and women, especially believers.

 

I have mentioned in these devotions on forgiveness that I believe forgiveness should be known as one of the classical spiritual disciplines – the practices that we work at continuously to, over time, strengthen our spirit and faith.  Though forgiveness is not seen in any of the lists I’ve seen, I believe it should be.  Here’s my case.

                First, human relationships are chronically imperfect.  Even in the best relationships, mistakes can happen.  It is probable that, at any given time, we are either in need of someone else’s forgiveness or we are needing to forgive someone who has hurt us in some way.  Just as prayer (communication w/ God) is oxygen for a relationship with God to be maintained and grow, forgiveness is the salve that allows relationships to sustain the bumps and setbacks that invariably occur between humans.  Embracing forgiveness as something to be practiced continuously improves our emotional intelligence and relational toolbox. 

                In addition, you practice skills that you want to improve.  Lebron James has mastered his sport through grueling practice and repetition. The famous art that you see in museums were not the first paintings done by the now-renowned artists.  They often painted/practiced for decades before producing the masterpieces we now celebrate.  Most babies crawl before they walk.  If makes sense that if we are awkward at the art of forgiving, practicing it regularly would increase our forgiveness skill. 

                In all the spiritual disciplines I practice on a regular basis, all were awkward, if not downright difficult when I first tried them.  My first attempts at prayer were so unfocused and preoccupied with unimportant things.  My first attempts at meditation were laughable.  My mind would wander after only about ten seconds.  My first fast was over almost as soon as it started.  After years of regularly practicing these disciplines, they all now feel more natural and they yield much better results.  Regularly working at forgiveness brings the same kind of proficiency.  I think of the author and professor Everett Worthington.  He taught, studied, and practiced forgiveness for years before his mother was brutally assaulted and murdered during a home invasion.  It took a long time, but he was able to forgive the attacker and he attributes the possibility of forgiving such a heinous offense to his years of teaching and working at forgiveness before the tragedy occurred. 

                Finally, to become a more competent forgiver brings the possibility of more sustained spiritual health.  Just as a strong heart muscle, born of regular cardiovascular exercise, sustains our physical health and protects us from potential health risks, practicing forgiveness regularly in the smaller matters of life, increases our ability to forgive “bigger” offenses when the opportunity comes.  Instead of being spiritually crippled by the blindside of another, we are able to deal with the setback more skillfully and fruitfully.  Forgiveness is more helpful to us as a discipline than a once-in-a-while-when-we-need-it activity. 

 

Question:  Are you better able to forgive now than you were when you first became a Christian?  Why or why not?

 

Prayer:  God, it seems that humanity would keep you busy with having to forgive the seemingly infinite mistakes we commit against You.  Yet, You keep forgiving flawlessly every time it is necessary.  Help us develop that capacity as well as we seek to reflect Your image.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who live with chronic pain today.

 

Song:  This song doesn’t specifically talk about forgiveness, but it does talk about the value of repetitive experiences strengthening us. 

You Learn – Alanis Morrisette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QbBbnnAr5A

Who Has the Power?

1 Peter 3:9-11, CEB - Don’t pay back evil for evil or insult for insult. Instead, give blessing in return. You were called to do this so that you might inherit a blessing. For those who want to love life and see good days should keep their tongue from evil speaking and their lips from speaking lies. They should shun evil and do good; seek peace and chase after it.

 

Forgiveness at it’s very least provides for more positive outcomes than the alternatives.  When I was younger, my policy was to forgive those who were sorry.  If they apologized (and I was convinced of their sincerity), I could forgive almost anything.  But I required an apology if I was going to forgive.  I think many people hold this policy.

But as I began to study forgiveness, I began to see the main problem with this approach.  If I wait for an apology in order to start the forgiveness process, I know for sure that there are things I will never forgive.  I know this because the people who would have given the apology are dead.  Obviously, barring some miraculous visitation, I will never get their apology.  So if I stick with this policy, forgiveness is impossible in those cases.  There are still other cases where the offender is alive, but it is highly unlikely that they will ever apologize.  In some of these cases, I know they have no remorse for what they did.  Perhaps, in other cases, the offender doesn’t even know they hurt me.  If I require an apology or at least remorse, then the offender has the power to start the forgiveness process, not me.

Here's another problem with withholding forgiveness.  It may feel powerful to “hold an offense” over someone or even nurse a grudge.  Negative emotion is powerful even if it is negative power.  However, holding the offense in our heart robs me of energy that could be used in a much more positive way.  If someone is not sorry for hurting me, me choosing not to forgive them is not hurting them; it’s hurting me.  I’m certainly not punishing the dead with my unforgiveness.  Further, even those who might be in some way punished by me holding the offense over them are punished along with myself.  That is adding injustice to injustice.

Choosing to forgive whether or not there is remorse is a decision to take back the power.   It is claiming the initiative to do something about that which has hurt me.  It is the decision to no longer be a victim.  It creates new options for moving beyond the hurts of the past and beginning anew.  If is a life-giving choice instead of the life-diminishing choice of holding a grudge.  It is a way to, as Peter says above, “inherit a blessing.”

 

Question:   Are there grudges that I am holding onto that are punishing me more than anyone else?

 

Prayer:  Lord, we confess that we sometimes struggle with letting go of the past for many different reasons.  No matter the reasons, help us see the positive options available to us by choosing to forgive as You do.   Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the victims of domestic violence today.

 

Song:  Forgiveness – Matthew West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lu5udXEZI

The Garden of Your Soul

 

Galatians 6:6-10, CEB - Those who are taught the word should share all good things with their teacher. Make no mistake, God is not mocked. A person will harvest what they plant.  Those who plant only for their own benefit will harvest devastation from their selfishness, but those who plant for the benefit of the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit. Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up.  So then, let’s work for the good of all whenever we have an opportunity, and especially for those in the household of faith.

 

Questions:  What is planted in your spirit?  What is growing in your heart?  What seeds are in the soil of your relationships?

 

We began with the questions today because the scripture naturally leads to them without any explanation.  If virtues are planted in the spirit, fruitful virtue tends to bloom in one’s life.  If bitterness is growing in your heart, anger and resentment seem to creep into our motivations and actions.  If seeds of trust and gratitude is planted in relationships,     then those same blooms tend to multiply. 

Let’s apply this principle to forgiveness (if you haven’t already).  If you have truly received and embraced forgiveness for you own mistakes, that forgiveness planted in  your soul tends to make the “soil” of your soil more receptive to the possibility of you forgiving others.  It works the other way as well.  If your do the hard work of forgiving others, your heart is even more prepared to embrace forgiveness of others and God; it’s a more “natural” experience. If you want to forgive, work on embracing the truth that your have been forgiven.  If you want to expand your own experience of being forgiven, then work on forgiving others. 

Paul is ruthless on this principle.  You can’t fake the true condition of your heart, spirit, and mind.  What you plant there will determine what blossoms in your life, for better or for worse.  What you practice in your relationships will produce a natural result.   So back to the questions for the day.

 

Questions:  What is planted in your spirit?  What is growing in your heart?  What seeds are in the soil of your relationships?

 

Prayer:  Eternal God, from the beginning of our lives, your desire has been to plant your image and character in us.  Forgive us for the ways we have been uncooperative with your purpose.  We will strive from this moment to receive your goodness and let it take root in our heart.  May our capacity to receive and give forgiveness increase.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless all the mothers you know today.

 

Song:  You Gotta Reap What You Sow – Alberta Hunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKEPe4uY8E

Forgiving is Good for You. . .Really (Part 2)

Matthew 6:12-15, NASB - And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.

 

                We pick up today where we left off yesterday with the discussion of self-serving reasons that learning to forgive is good for you.  Yesterday we touched on the physical, relational, emotional, and mental benefits of the practice of forgiving. Today, we add the spiritual dimension.  Forgiving others is good for your relationship with God and refusing to forgive hinders your relationship with God.  However, the correlation doesn’t work the way many people think.  Many read the scripture above and take from that God withholds God’s forgiveness if we don’t forgive others.  In other words, God’s forgiveness is conditional.  That is NOT what this passage is saying.  Just to be clear – God’s forgiveness is NOT conditional.  Let’s take a closer look. 

There is a principle that has been demonstrated over and over and which all of us should recognize and begin to live into.  What you focus on, you get more of.  This extends to spiritual disciplines as well.  If you are angry much of the time, you will receive anger most of the time.  If you act in judgmental ways, you will find yourself being judged.  If you are free with your condemnation of others, you will find yourself being condemned.    The apostle Paul said it this way:

 

“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”                      Galatians 6:7-8

 

So, for a moment today, I encourage you to focus on your experience of being forgiven.  The reason for that is you need that experience as a basis to practice forgiving others.  In a surprising way that I hope you all have or will experience, the opposite is true as well.  As you practice forgiving others, your own experience of being forgiven deepens and expands.  That’s why Jesus, Paul, and forgiveness teachers in every tradition teach about the profound connection between forgiving and being forgiven.  One does not exist without the other. 

God forgives us first (Eph 4:32), then we begin to forgive others and ourselves. This leads to a deeper experience of God’s forgiveness. This empowers us to better be able to forgive others and ourselves.  The cycle repeats. The cycle repeats again.  Forgiveness grows in us and in the world.  That’s how it supposed to work.  Forgiveness is a conspiracy of God’s scandalous love.  It turns the Old Testament notion of “eye for an eye” upside down.  That’s why I call it a revolution – a forgiveness revolution.

However, the revolution goes nowhere without our participation, without our practice.  That’s why I consider forgiveness a spiritual discipline.  One aspect of a discipline is that you do it even when you don’t feel like it because, somewhere way deeper than your feelings, you know it’s good for you.  This conviction that it’s good for you grows as you do it – you begin to actually feel the benefits after you been doing it while.  This feeling reinforces and inspires you to move even deeper into the discipline – thus someone who couldn’t even run a mile at one time completes a marathon.  The practice of forgiveness is like that too.

But at first, if you’re like me, you really don’t want to do it and furthermore, it doesn’t seem like it would be good for you.   Even with the experience of BEING forgiven under your belt, turning around and forgiving others doesn’t seem attractive.  God can forgive because God is, well. . . God.  Ah, but let me plant a thought in your mind before I sign off until tomorrow. 

 

Question:  Remember a time when you knew that either God or someone else had forgiven you.  Connect with how that affected you physically, emotionally and spiritually.  To the extent you were able to make that connection, how are you now more ready to forgive others?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for your forgiveness.  Help us begin to understand why you forgive so that we may begin to forgive as well. Amen

 

Song:  I’m Not Who I Was – Brandon Heath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqj9ACL5fNQ