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Thanks Seth for another insightful probe into the realities of our search for a Jesus life.
We wound various people without personal volition.
Others (and us) wound out of a desire to make blood.
That is the “great divide”.
The whole discussion bends around the corner on the two.
I have never in my life– knowingly– hurt another person.
I wish that was the world we lived in.
It has not been mine.
Shalom.
Thanks for this. Henri Nouwen is my favorite author. He is a way of stirring up things in my soul.
I love this “When we are willing to confess that we often hand those we love over to suffering, even against our best intentions, we will be more ready to forgive those who, mostly against their will, are the causes of our pain.” It makes me think about the cycle of abuse. My parents were abused and then in return they became abusers. My parents do not know Jesus. Reading this reminds me but for the grace of God I could easily continue to cycle.
In some ways I do continue the cycle. I don’t open myself to other people and end up hurting them, because I have been hurt. hurting people hurt people.
I haven’t been at the place of forgiveness because I still see their sin as greater then mine. I’m still have too much anger to be ready to forgive, but reading this at least reminds me that my parents are human.
Yep. Grueling stuff to be on the receiving end of, but like you said, easy to forgive the “offender” when you know they are acting out of a wounded heart. Right on.
Yes. By recognizing our own guilt or possible guilt in this, we can forgive others who have done this to us.
Interestingly, I just experienced this first hand last night. Due to my own ignorance, and possibly because my parents sheltered me a lot, my sister and I made a foolish mistake in how we sold my car. Now, I have to face some tough decisions in resolving and/or moving past this. My sister is angry at our folks for not teaching us about this kind of thing. I am not angry at them. I believe that I should have been more cautious and more researched. However, I can still see why she would feel that way. I am just humbled from this experience. I feel like I have moved to another level of maturity. I just feel stronger now on other levels.
Also interestingly enough, my friend earlier yesterday gave me advice (completely unrelated) on growing out of naivety. “Assume everyone is a jerk, but be surprised when they are nice.” I won’t live cynically, but I see his wisdom. Instead, I’ll keep this as, “Don’t put it past someone to do wrong just because they seem nice.” So obvious now that this happened to me. I can see how God is teaching me. This is the second time within two months this happened, where someone gave me advice (24 hours prior) that helped with an unrelated, but similar, event later. It was like God set it up to show me my weakness and break me of it.
Anyways, I am rambling, but I hope this info blesses someone else. Your parents may have sheltered you too much or too little, but we are responsible for our actions and decisions based on what we know. God can help us learn and grow in our weak areas. He is the best teacher there is.
Actually, it was more than just feeling like God setting up this situation. It is deeper than that. I can’t explain this, of course, but it shows me again how big God is, and how much control He has over my existence. My human mind is stumbling over how interwoven things are in time. It was like God gave me a piece of advice, and then either because He meant for me to be in my car situation and learn from my error, or He preemptively saw my mistake, and set the advice prior to it for the sake of reflection. Knowing me, I probably would have had a harder time learning from it without that prior advice. I see now that I am an experiential learner.
He also showed me His power since I have been having doubts about Him.
Once again, it just shows how omnipotent and omniscient He is. Yes, your parents weren’t the best, or someone wounded you, but God can work around it or use it to help you grow past it. In retrospect, I am happy on some level for my lesson. I am stronger, wiser, and I have more faith now in my gut instinct (which I ignored).
Stay blessed y’all.
In recent days Judas’ betrayal and Jesus’ unfair trials before Herod, Caiaphas, and the High Priest Pilate have received focused study.
Of all the things I learned through pondering Jesus’ ordeal the one that stands out the most is His silence before His accusers. So resolue is His determination to obey His Father fully that moments before arrested His agony produced ruptured blood vessels in His head; His sweat became like drops of blood.
The harrowing ordeal that followed—the flogging with a cat-o-nine tails, the crown of thorns (and you know they would have made it fit), the beatings, then the horror of being nailed—yet never once did Jesus retaliate in word or thought toward His accusers.
I heard years ago that when we reach Heaven and are perfected,’Nothing shall offend us.’ I have pondered that a lot over the years. Here is what I think it means: when a person is fully convinced of their ugly, sinful, filthy, stain-ridden, guilt-infested state of being before a Holy God, when we truly grasp what is meant by our “righteous acts being like menstrual rags”, then nothing any person does will offend us. WE offended GOD and He provided the solution with no help from us.
And He freely forgives. It is ongoing.
That makes anyone’s offense to me, however egregious I might think it is, of no consequence. But only a perfected individual can respond in humility when we have been wounded, often deeply.
And we aren’t there yet.
But, that is our journey. And we can begin now. I am learning to NOT be offended by what people do to me….and instead turn immediately into my Father’s Presence where there is unlimited, inexhaustible Peace and Understanding. It is a long process and I fail. But my mind at least now knows and I’m finding the time it takes to forgive is often much shorter than it used to be. Many times it is instantaneous.
God is the only one with any right to be offended. Ever. Yet He has accepted me in His Beloved Son.
I want to stop being so offended. When someone hands me over to suffering I learn to forgive. When I in my humanity unintentionally hand someone over to suffering—and become aware of it, I want to be quick to ask forgiveness. And mean it. And move on.