As We Forgive Others

In: Personal Reflections on the Study of God's Word
Published:

In the 1998 movie "The Christmas Wish" Will Martin (Neil Patrick Harris) sets out to provide an answer to his grandmother Ruth's (Debbie Reynolds) Christmas wish to know who Lillian is - someone who shows up in her late husbands journals after their only son and his wife (Will's parents) were killed in a car accident. If you have never seen this movie, and don't want the ending spoiled stop reading, go find the movie and watch it before you finish this post!...

... in the end Will does find Lillian and it is implied that she was the driver that caused the accident that killed Will's parents. One of the closing scenes shows Ruth at Lillian's bedside, holding her hands telling her, "I forgive you too." Alan Patton once eloquently said, "When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive."
 
Our phrase this week is "as we forgive those who have sinned against us" (#AsWeForgiveOthers). Just as God is calling us to confess our transgressions so we can be forgiven, He is also calling us to forgive those who have harmed us. While being forgiven is important, forgiving others is essential to free us from the prison of anger and pain that results from someone injuring us.
 
Most of us do not have a problem where in Matthew 5:23 & 24 Jesus tells us that if our brother (or sister) has something against us (indicating that WE did something wrong) the obligation rests on us to go and make it right. We expect that when we have done something wrong it is our responsibility to make it right (going back to our "Own It" concept from last week.) We have much more trouble with Matthew 18 where He tells us that if we have something against our brother (or sister) the responsibility rests on US to go to them and make it right. Here THEY have done something to harm US - shouldn't it be their responsibility to make it right? According to Matthew 5 it is, but here Jesus is telling us "Don't wait for them, you be the agent of healing!"
 
Human nature loves to wait, choosing to be a martyr saying "if they would come to me and apologize I would forgive them" allowing the injury to fester rather than heal. This phrase, along with Matthew 18, reminds us that when we forgive those who have injured us, it frees us to heal.

 

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A number of years ago as I was attempting to understand God's methodology and His timing I came to the realization that from my perspective God is always a day late and a dollar short, but from His perspective He is right on time with just enough. My challenge is to stop seeing it from my perspective and start seeing it from His! These past few weeks as Lisa and I have been preparing for and implementing our move from Texas to Tennessee it has been essential for us to NOT view this move from our perspective but from God's.

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50 years ago this evening I was impatiently waiting for the new day to arrive. I had spent several weeks visiting my grandparents in Loma Linda, California and on July 4 we were going to Disneyland! It wasn't actually my grandparents who were taking me (although they went along) it was my uncle Ken and Aunt Ruthie and it was a reward for helping Aunt Ruthie with her daycare (it was called baby sitting back then!) while she took her children, Heidi Ranalla and Adam Turk to swimming lessons. I still don't know what possessed us to think that it was a good idea but on July 4, 1976 we went to Disneyland!
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In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Chekov and Uhura have beamed into the reactor room on the aircraft carrier Enterprise to harvest radiation from the nuclear reactors. Due to failing power on the Klingon starship Scotty must beam them back one at a time. At 1:14:27 into the movie as the guards on the Enterprise are closing in Chekov makes an effort to contact Scotty to be beamed out of the reactor room making a desperate plea "Scotty, now would be a good time!" How often when things aren't going the way we think they should do we ask God to resolve the issue in the way that we think would be best. Like Chekov we declare "Now would be a good time!" for God to solve our problems.

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