Once when I was in 9th grade I hated this girl, she lied all the time and made my life miserable. I found out she was going to be in my cabin for summer camp and I lost it! I was telling my parents and crying and was just so mad. My Dad told me to imagine "pushing her off the river raft boat (we went river rafting at camp)..." And he said some other things to make me feel better that I wont repeat. haha SO at first I did just like he said. There was this feeling in my heart of " ya she got what she deserves", and a feeling of adrenaline. I loved it and replayed pushing her off the boat, in my head.
After a day or so I realized that I felt a sense of "disconnect" with God. I felt like I was praying to a wall... After 3 days of this and yelling at God about how its not fair, and how it was right that I hated her... I gave up. I fell on my face and asked God to help me forgive her, to love her, and to forgive me for my hate. I knew I didn't like her, but I disliked being "disconnected" from God even more. That was the last time that I really felt a sense of "revenge".
But in listening to this sermon, I saw that once again revenge was growing inside of me. Half way through the sermon he says that Jesus calls us to Pray for those against us, and said " are u wishing blessings on this person? Are u praying for good things in their life? " I realized that the only time I was praying for this certain person it was for them to feel "conviction", or to "change". Things that I still hope happen, but I realized that MY HEART, needs to be WHOLE, it needs to be full of LOVE and the GRACE of Christ. A divided heart doesn't work.
I once heard a very wise and true statement about the heart from a missionary that I respect greatly named Floyd McClung. He said that is was impossible to separate the heart into sections. If a part of the heart is rotting with bitterness then do not be fooled, it WILL spread to the rest of the heart. It will affect everything.
I looked at my heart today, and threw away my desire for "revenge", I replaced it with Peace of knowing God is walking with me. I took the anger and hurt and I gave it to God, and I'm trying to live by Grace and Forgiveness... I'm beginning to pray for blessings on this person. Already I can feel my heart feeling lighter... it feels right.... to Love....
I want forgiveness to flow out of my life. I want to be a person who is strong in the Lord's grace that she freely gives it to others. I want to be a women who loves those that hurt her, and turn their back on her. I don't want bitterness anywhere in my heart, and I desperately want my heart to be whole... and thats up to me to let God use and invade all the places I hold as "mine". I know this isn't an easy thing to do... much easier to write about. But even in this sermon, he says its a process.... but that bitterness we hold on begins to shape us and the longer it takes for us to let go, the longer it will take to replace those lies and learned ways with what God desires... the longer it takes to become "whole" .
and look up the sermon from June 14 2009 called "Drop the Jawbone"
1 comment:
i just walked through an exercise in hatred/vengefulness v. grace and forgiveness this week... luckily yeah, being right with god is so much more desireable than BEING ON TOP! easy to forget when someone makes every effort to hurt you, but i found that meditating on scripture would instantly soften my clenched fist of a heart. but yesssss... it's a process. =/
Post a Comment