Fill Our Own Tank

I'm tired. I just deleted two hundred words and two pictures that I'd been working on for two hours. Am I tired because I couldn't generate a thoughtful insight or is my fatigue blocking my brain? I'm too tired to decide.

How did we get in a place where so many of us feel pressure to produce a coherent thought every day or every week so those who read us will be entertained or encouraged? Used to be only magazines took on that task. Time magazine collected the news every week, wrote up the latest conflict, and we read it in our easy chairs. We didn't know about user-generated content.

Today, I'd like to go back to that. I don't want to think about social media, or book promotion, or even being a means of grace. Not today. I'll feel more rested later and I'll come back. But today, I'm going to read someone else's writing and glean God's word of grace to me.

Sometimes we need to fill our own tank.

Father, thank you for being in charge so we can take time to rest.

Live in Peace, Choose Forgivness

"If you forgave them, why don't you go see them more often?" One of the attendees at a workshop on forgiving our parents asked. I'd spoken of the abuse from my father, his continuing oppressive nature, and how I'd given up my hatred, but still didn't spend much time with them.

At the time, about fifteen years ago, I couldn't articulate my response clearly. Today, I know it's the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is unilateral. Reconciliation takes two. Anyone can let anyone else off the hook for a hurt, all by themselves. They don't need the other person to accept responsibility for causing that pain. I can stop my fury at my father whether he repents or not. You can give up your anger at your classmate for his high school ridicule whether you ever see that person again. We can live in peace by choosing forgiveness.

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However, to make peace with our tormentor requires the perpetrator of the wrong to recognize the wrong, listen to your pain, and make amends. My father, now deceased, recognized his wrong, for which I'm thankful. But he never listened to my pain nor did he make amends. Trust was never built between us. I live in peace, however, because of forgiveness.

Anyone you know you need to forgive today? Anyone close that you don't trust? Someone who sparks a bad memory? Ask for grace to choose forgiveness so you can live in peace.

Father, we cannot forgive without your power. Convict us of our unforgiveness and set us free.

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How to Wrestle with God

My article, Is God's Purpose Worth Your Pain? , on CBN.com attracted a number of comments. One commenter says she was "shocked and intrigued" when she read my statement, "If we wrestle with him until he blesses us…"  She asks: "Is it really okay to wrestle with God?"

That's a reference to Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with the angel of the Lord all night and in the morning says "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me."

Psalm 62:8 says, "Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us."

In Luke 22:42 Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, prayed, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." (All KJV)

These three parts of the story of God's dealing with human beings (The Bible) all say to me that it is okay to struggle, with God. It's the "with God" part that's important.

Let's put it in human terms:  suppose you're angry at someone. She said she'd bring dessert to the party last week, but she didn't show up at all. She called the next day and said she'd forgotten, breezing right on to "How did it go?" Well it didn't go very well, because you were counting on her banana cake and so were your guests, who'd heard all about how good it was. You felt betrayed.

What's the next step here? If you want to maintain a close relationship with this friend, you confront her, right? Depending on how emotionally healthy you are, you confront her with yelling or with kind firmness.

But one way or another, you resolve the conflict. Not by ignoring it, but by telling your hurt and anger. Because you have a long history with this person and you want to keep the relationship. If she wants to keep the relationship, she acknowledges your pain and apologizes. She makes it up to you.

Well, suppose you're angry at God. (I know, it's a big leap from forgetting dessert to life-changing sin against us, but bear with me) If God gives me permission to "pour out my heart," he's going to get it all. My heart, as God knows, is desperately wicked and is sometimes full of anger at him! What to do with that anger? Do you want the relationship? Yes? Then you wrestle and pour our your heart and say, with Jesus, but not my will, but yours.

At Gethsemane, even Jesus had a different will than the Father. He wanted the cup to pass from him. And after pouring out his heart, he submitted. Not before the struggle. After.

And that's the way to wrestle with God. God will not apologize to you. But God will hear your pain. God will open his arms to you. God will meet you in your deep struggle to trust him.

God wants an honest relationship. There is a world of difference between turning away from God in our anger and pain and turning toward God in our anger and pain.

If we turn away, he grieves. If we take our anger and pain to him, telling him how it feels, that is, in itself, an act of submission, and he leans forward to listen. 

And remember Romans 8:18: "For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us." (KJV)

Father, thank you that you are a father who wants an honest relationship with us.