Category: Restoration

Forgiving: A Lenten Possibility

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

Unforgiveness will turn you into someone you never intended to be, displaying the attitudes and qualities you detest in others. – Nancy DeMoss

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. – Josh Billings

A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers. – Ruth Bell Graham

At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, “Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?” Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22, MSG

____________________________________________________________________

I’ve heard some amazing Lenten sacrifices in this year’s offerings, from much-needed radiation treatment for an advancing cancer to finally laying down grief in the loss of a dearly loved parent.

Here’s one I have not heard, although I have no doubt it’s being offered:

How about forgiving?

There are some really great wins and guarantees to our forgiving an offense:

(1) it lessens its intensity

(2) it reduces its frequency of reminding you of the offense

(3) it expands my capacity to (finally!) be a loving, inoffensible person

If we truly see the wealth of what can be gained by simply forgiving, we might not only adopt it as a Lenten possibility, but a lifetime reality.

To fail to extend forgiveness–even to someone who does not request it–puts the offended person in a bunkered-down state. Moving forward is out of the question. There is no future for an unforgiving person, only the baleful reliving of the past. Over and over again. It is deadly toxic and crippling.

Of all the things that choke and poison spiritual growth, resentments are probably the most devastatingly effective.
E. Stanley Jones

Stop living as though someone else is to blame for your life. Get revenge on whoever offended you by letting them out of your debtor’s jail. The joke will be on them. While they think they are getting a reprieve, it will be you who will finally breathe the fresh air and run through fields of wildflowers beneath cobalt skies. Go on, forgive them. Release it. Let it go.

And, for mercy’s sake, move on.

While Grace Is Still Counting

The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy.
Numbers 14:18

Hell is God’s justice, heaven His mercy, and the earth His long-suffering.
Anonymous

The goodness of God leads you to repentance.
Romans 2:4

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Ecclesiastes 8:11

All the day long I have stretched out My hands unto a people disobeying and opposing.
Romans 10:21, Darby Translation

My stars, this is painful.

It’s like I’m watching a train wreck about to happen.

I can see a horrible collision unfolding but am helpless to stop it. I can warn the train: The bridge is out! I can jump up and down, wave my arms and yell, but the train keeps barreling down the track, unconcerned about the impending danger to itself and others. There will most certainly be a violent end, a cacophony of twisted metal and burning flesh. And there’s nothing I can do to prevent it from happening.

I’m not speaking curses here, I’ve just stood around enough tracks to see how these things turn out. Be not deceived, we are told, God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, the same he will reap. Oh, how I wish this time could be different, yes I do, but this is an immutable law of life and those who refuse to learn from the past are destined to repeat it. Continue reading While Grace Is Still Counting

Father’s Day From A Prodigal’s Perspective

Today I propose we do a little what if-ing. Let’s “what-if?” the story that contains the prodigal son. It pretty much leaves us with some open-ended questions, I know.

Did Dad ever want to wring the son’s neck? Ever?

Where was Mom in all this?

What happened six weeks or six months later?

Did the kid suffer a relapse?

Questions.

So…let’s pretend.

Imagine if Father’s Day fell a week following the prodigal son’s return. No, check that. Let’s pretend it occurred about six or seven months later. On that morning, the father—let’s call him Chanan (Hebrew for gracious)—awakens from a dreamless sleep and rubs his eyes so as to roust them from their hours of inertia. It is still dark, but an oil lamp casts a coppery glow inside the master’s bedroom, and he looks at the pleasing, sleeping form of his wife—oh, may as well: Chana. Hannah. Grace. Continue reading Father’s Day From A Prodigal’s Perspective