“…You are God, Ready to pardon, Gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, Abundant in kindness…”
There are a lot of folds in the weaving of life, and when it comes down to it, the thread that can pull all of the fragility and beauty out of life is the (lack of the) thread of forgiveness (unforgiveness). A friend of mine named Richard (the Italian gadget man) used to say, “Hate is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Richard, who is now with the Lord, was a smart man, and while we never really connected on a really personal level, now he knows Jesus more than he ever even knew himself.
Forgiveness is so important to the quality of life. The absence of forgiveness makes for an open ended life with unresolve and shut doors on emotions that are meant to be swung open at all times (if not torn down).
I analyze everything, and not necessarily in a negative way. I like getting to the throat of why I like things, despise other things, and even why I feel no particular way about other things. I usually don’t develop an opinion (or at least a solid one) until I’ve had a chance to digest the facts. I need to digest things before I can pull them out of my gut to give life to them in my own way. Thus is the case in the present season of my life. This thing of mercy is consuming me right now. A gangling of mercy (of what I believe God is doing in me right now) is forgiveness. When it comes down to it, I realize (CONSTANTLY) that the person I’m none-to-good at forgiving would be an Arizonan mountain boy: quiet until you get to know him, funny unless you don’t “get” his humor, and seemingly melancholy until you listen to his heart. The person, the object of my unforgiveness is…me. “What have I become?” is sometimes the question that I ask when I glance at myself in the morning’s bathroom mirror. It’s often like rolling out of bed into a raging river. And as I fight the current, I pull myself coherent enough to see Christ sealed over my heart. And in a second that seems like an eternity, I remember the years. Hurt and joy duke it out in my mind for mere moments as I forget that I am me and start to remember that it’s not me who I really want people to see. The whole “being conformed to the likeness of Christ” is something I’m quite serious about…and I know that I can only be serious about that because of the Spirit of the indwelling Christ alive in me. And so as I scramble to get into my day, the raging river of God’s love is the flow that I want to jump into, and as I jump into that river I sort of just get pulled away in who Christ is…it’s happening, it’s really happening. I have more joy, more peace, and all in all I just feel free.
I need to get better at forgiving the people around me…but especially myself too. So the thread that often gets pulled out of the weaving of my knitting of life is being sewn back in. It’s a part of healing. How can I forgive my brother (not Josh or John…”brother” in the broad sense of mankind) if I can’t forgive myself?
Jesus, let your healing run deep into my heart. Purify me. Refine me in the hot fire of Your love. Let my life be like a love song to Your heart, and let it become Your heart to the world. I long to be swept away in the raging current of Your love, and to be forever pulled under into the depths of the knowledge of You. ~Amen