Forgiveness : one of the hardest things to practice yet one of the things we need to practice over and over day after day. Come on we are all fallible human beings living among fallible human beings. Most times intentional yet you feel the hurt. A short tone. A roll of the eyes seem so harmless yet you never know what stories people quietly carry beneath their smile. And these are the unintentional hurts. Can I even began on the true atrocities that destroy the human spirit. Rape Murder Racism Adultery and the list could go on and on. If you cant forgive these smaller pains how will you ever forgive the big ones. Surely never on your own. When I look to God can I even do the things He requires of me. Things like not holding a grudge. Sitting in the pain. Not fighting back. Not making them feel my pain. You’ve been there you know how impossibly hard that is when everything inside of you is screaming I want to hurt you back. Can you sit in that messy hellish emotion and let it pass and give it to God? Can you really give it to God? Can you sit there when someone is yelling at you and not yell back? Can you separate that person from their sin against you and say as Jesus did Father forgive them for they know not what they do. It is humanly difficult but not impossible. It requires surrender and acknowledgement that we our Gods and God has our back and will settle the score the way He chooses to. It requires letting go. Letting go of our rights. It requires giving God your hurt and pain. It requires letting God heal your heart and treating that person who hurt you with kindness. Its not a one time deal. It’s a process and sometimes you have to forgive over and over even for years depending on your pain. Its not an easy choice but it is the right choice. Possibly one of the hardest choices of your life yet one of the most healing loving choices you can make for yourself to restore peace into your life.
Tag: forgiveness
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Father forgive them
Father forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing”~Luke 23:34
What does forgive them for they know not what they do really mean anyways? A few years back God began to whisper this to my heart. I went through a challenging time in my life where someone in my life struggled with anger. Anger has always been a hard thing for me because of the people pleasing narrative that ran through my mind. It said if people are mad at you then they don’t like you. So for most of my life I had lived my life this way. Ill make you happy and you wont be mad at me and will like me and Ill feel good about myself. But then I met someone who just was angry. It didn’t matter what I said or did to try to make them happy they still got angry. They had a problem and I didn’t know how to fix it. I was pretty miserable. It was then that God began to whisper Forgive them for they know not what they do. I really began to truly understand for the first time what this means. This person just couldn’t see that they had a problem. No matter how many times I would say ‘ you have an anger problem’ their reply was ‘ I don’t have an anger problem.’ It was a trying time that I still cannot forget. As humans we all have our vices we struggle with and we just cannot see how our troubles trouble others. I’ve had my fair share of my own troubles that now I am certain I brought trouble to others but sometimes you don’t realize that until you feel the pain of it. So I began to pray and pray and pray. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. It was an enlightening time for sure. To forgive those who are clueless to their trouble and to realize that my own troubles bring troubles to others. Its one thing to pray Father forgive them but quiet another to practice it myself. To forgive someone who is clueless is to do as Jesus said to Peter. When Peter asked how many times should I forgive my brother. Jesus said 77 times. Wow that’s a lot of times. It means we keep forgiving and forgiving. Its something we just cant do without Gods spirit inside us. This time in my life has now passed and Im in a peaceful season but I am grateful for this season where I learned about forgiveness and how it changed my heart.💜
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You are forgiven
-40 Once a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus to be a guest for a meal.Picture this:Just as Jesus enters the man’s home and takes His place at the table, a woman from the city—notorious as a woman of ill repute—follows Him in. She has heard that Jesus will be at the Pharisee’s home, so she comes in and approaches Him, carrying an alabaster flask of perfumed oil. Then she begins to cry, she kneels down so her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, and she starts wiping His feet with her own hair. Then she actually kisses His feet, and she pours the perfumed oil on them.Simon (thinking): Now I know this guy is a fraud. If He were a real prophet, He would have known this woman is a sinner and He would never let her get near Him, much less touch Him . . . or kiss Him!Jesus (knowing what the Pharisee is thinking): Simon, I want to tell you a story.Simon: Tell me, Teacher.Jesus: 41 Two men owed a certain lender a lot of money. One owed 100 weeks’ wages, and the other owed 10 weeks’ wages. 42 Both men defaulted on their loans, but the lender forgave them both. Here’s a question for you: which man will love the lender more?Simon: 43 Well, I guess it would be the one who was forgiven more.Jesus: Good answer.44-46 Now Jesus turns around so He’s facing the woman, although He’s still speaking to Simon.Jesus: Do you see this woman here? It’s kind of funny. I entered your home, and you didn’t provide a basin of water so I could wash the road dust from My feet. You didn’t give Me a customary kiss of greeting and welcome. You didn’t offer Me the common courtesy of providing oil to brighten My face. But this woman has wet My feet with her own tears and washed them with her own hair. She hasn’t stopped kissing My feet since I came in. And she has applied perfumed oil to My feet. 47 This woman has been forgiven much, and she is showing much love. But the person who has shown little love shows how little forgiveness he has received.48 (to the woman) Your sins are forgiven.Simon and Friends (muttering among themselves): 49 Who does this guy think He is? He has the audacity to claim the authority to forgive sins?Jesus (to the woman): 50 your faith has liberated you. Go in peace.~ Luke 7:36-50
We all come to Jesus in different ways but the same thing leads us to him: our sin. In our minds we love to compare our sins. We feel better about ourselves if our sin isn’t as big as someone else’s. We judge those who steal, kill and cheat and yet we gossip, lie and judge others. We may categorize sins but God doesn’t. Sin is sin. We may think we are better because the sins that lead us to Jesus are small sins but maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe it’s the ones we look down on with the big sins that are actually more blessed. Who’s more blessed the one who invited Jesus or the one who followed Him? Which one are you?Who is Simon? Simon was a Pharisee. He was a religious man who was outwardly pious and religiously hypocritical. He prided himself on separation from anything unclean and sinful. I can relate to Simon. I grew up in the church and always tried my best to set the bar high. I was the good girl. I knew all the rules and I made sure I stayed within the lines. I also set these expectations onto others too. This made me judgmental, critical and sinful. Growing up in the church I was constantly aware that I was a sinner and needed to constantly ask for forgiveness. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I walked down to the alter and asked Jesus into my heart once again. I was the one who invited Jesus but was I really blessed. Like Simon I sat at the table that I had invited Jesus too and in my comfy chair I sat in judgement of the one at His feet.Who is this woman? This women who followed Him in. The one who wasn’t invited. The one Simon judged as unclean. This woman who came undone. The one who was a hot mess. I think we can relate to her in some way. We’ve all had moments in our life where we laid down in surrender to our tears. Moments of hitting a bottom. The question is what we do in these moments. Are we like the woman who followed Jesus? Do we follow Him into the places we haven’t been invited? Do we fall to our knees in full abandon? Do we kiss his feet with our tears? Do we wipe our tears with our hair? Can you feel the love in this moment? The intimacy and the vulnerability. Could this be what forgiveness truly feels like?Who is this man Jesus? Who was invited and followed. This man fully God and fully human. This is a remarkable moment we have been invited into. The moment when Jesus who is fully God and without sin lets a woman who is full of sin kiss his feet. It is Jesus who anoints us but in this moment it is the woman who anoints Jesus. Could it be that our brokenness actually brings forth the blessing. It is a true paradox. For it is this brokenness of spirit that brings us to His feet. It is this brokenness that pours out of us in tears and brings healing anointment to our spirits. And what does Jesus have to say. To Simon the one who invited him yet never welcomed Him in. Simon sat at the end of the table with judgmental frigidness that distanced him from Jesus heart. He was calm and in control. Sure he had prepared a lovely meal for Jesus but he never washed His feet which was customary to all guests who were invited to a meal. When Jesus knocked on the door he didn’t greet Jesus with a kiss or offer oil to brighten his face. Instead he sat in his chair and watched as a woman followed Jesus in and washed His feet with her tears and kissed His feet and then poured perfume on His feet to anoint Him. He sat and he judged her. He distanced himself from her sin while ignoring his own sins. He disqualified her. In his mind someone like her should never touch anyone like Jesus. Have you ever been there? Have you ever let someone disqualify you from being forgiven? Or have you disqualified yourself?And what does Jesus say to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” To you He says the same. Whether you’ve been forgiven little or much. Sin is sin but to those who are broken by their sin. Those who follow Jesus into unwelcomed places you love Him more.
Meditations from the heart 