Forgiveness

I've been thinking this morning about unforgiveness.  
In my 20+ years of experience, working with students, it never ceases to amaze me at how people so young, can become so angry and bitter.


I have a pretty solid theory on that one, but that amount of information and opinion would take up another blog post on its own.  (let's suffice it to say, that their behaviors are learned, by observing the adults in their lives.)


To their credit, most students are quick to forgive and move on with life...but there are those who seem bent on holding on to anger, bitterness and out and out hatred.
Unfortunately, what many students and adults, for that matter, fail to realize is; anger, bitterness and hatred only hold us captive.  
They accomplish nothing of value and have no effect on the object of our loathing.


Think of a person against whom you are holding a grudge or harboring unforgiveness... What exactly are those feelings doing to them?  
Now, conversely, what is it doing to you?
Robbing you of joy, peace of mind, happiness...the full life that Jesus promised?  Your thoughts are consumed with how to get even, or exact some sort of twisted sense of satisfaction from their suffering.
The problem is:
The longer we linger in unforgiveness and bitterness, the longer we do damage to ourselves and more importantly, hinder the work that God is trying to do in us.


When we are wronged, or when someone we know is offended, we have a choice to make; forgive and let the offense go or hold on to it and nurse the grudge until it has consumed us...


Forgiveness brings freedom.  Period.  Unforgiveness, only brings bondage.


Forgiveness is one of the most important and powerful tools we possess in this life.


Too bad we don't use it as readily as we should.

God is watching...

I've been intrigued this morning with the thought that God is watching us...
(No, not that horrible Bette Midler song from the early 90's!)


I grew up in a fairly conservative, Christian home, where my parents instilled in me the idea/belief that God saw everything and was watching me.
As a child it was great motivation to behave.  (...of course I tried to hide, when there was something particularly enticing that I knew was wrong, but God had this way of ratting me out to Mom and Dad.)
In my pre-teen years, I began to understand that God indeed was watching, but it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit, that brought conviction to my heart and the subsequent remorse for the transgressions I committed.


The problem is that, like most of us who grew up with those ideals, the thought of God watching us and the conviction it brought to do "good things", waned with time.
It's not that I didn't believe that God was watching, it's that the repercussions for my "naughty" behavior, had less immediate bearing on my day to day life.


(Mom and Dad aren't there to be the "hand of God" on my backside.)


Therein lies the conundrum...  at what point did we/I become so calloused, desensitized, or "sophisticated" that we ceased to recognize the "voice" of the Holy Spirit in our lives?  
It's not like he stopped speaking...


I think the problem lies in our ability, or lack thereof, to recognize when God has "punished" us.
It's not that he's going to go all, Old Testament on us and cause the ground to open up and swallow us whole... or punish us in a traditional sense of the word...
However, there are consequences for disobedience.
So, when God's favor and the blessing of his presence is lacking, do we chalk it up to circumstance and the "trials" of life, instead of our own poor decisions?


Now, quickly before you chew me up and spit me out... I do not claim to sit in the seat of judgment as the one who has no sin, but it is interesting to make a comparison of life while living in obedience to God and life while living in disobedience to God.
The evidence kind of speaks for itself...

Bliss

It's late spring!  Can you believe it?  We're barreling at break-neck speed toward Summer...
Time for back-yard barbecue's, bike rides, picnics, camping, swimming...all that fun stuff we spent countless hours doing as kids.


Well, o.k., maybe you're still a kid and that's all you do during the summer months.
But as an adult, the majority of my awake time is spent working...I know, it sounds lame, right?
But, it's all a matter of perspective.  Whatchu talking 'bout?  


I'm talking about doing diligently, the things we've been given/called to do.


As a kid your primary focus is recreation...what can I do that will be the most fun, and how much fun can I pack in to one 24hour period?
When you "grow up", your focus drifts toward things like; a career path, achieving success, acquiring those things we, as a culture, deem important:
Car, house, wife/husband, kids, stuff...


When you grow up and take on responsibility, your focus tends to shift from the fun, to the necessary.  What do I "have" to do today in order to satisfy the demands placed upon me or that I've placed upon myself?


Fun becomes a luxury that we see somewhere out there in the nebulous recesses of our minds...it gets relegated to small windows of opportunity, like, vacations and days off.


Why is that?  Why can't we have fun or why have we chosen to deny ourselves the opportunity for fun?  Why do we, as adults, let ourselves sour beneath the burdens we so foolishly place upon our own shoulders?


Here's my brief thought in response to my own questions... Fun is what you make it.  If you've made choices that have stolen the fun from your life, what do you need to do to bring the joy back?
What decisions need to be made to keep you from the bitter path?
Change of perspective?  Attitude adjustment?  
It's like this; a guy by the name of Paul, wrote a letter to a group of people living in Rome.  
In his letter he said, "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
He goes on to say that whatever we are gifted to do, we need to do it cheerfully and for the benefit of others.  This Paul was quite a guy...
So, with God's help, it's totally possible to find the joy in our daily living...to bring the fun back.  Not every single moment will be guaranteed fun, because, life is hard.  
But, if we will trust God with our lives, allowing Him to give us a proper perspective on life and the work we do...He will help us bring the fun back.  
Let God bring the best out of you!