I officially haven't blogged in a month. I have had the urge multiple times but have never just sat down and did it. So here goes.
This past weekend at Central we had a guest speaker, Tommy Politz, from Dallas Texas come and kick off our new message series called Resonate. The whole series is going to be about relationships. Not just marriage or dating, but all kinds of relationship. I am stoked. I am all about relationships and creating connections with people so to hear a message series about how to do that in a Godly way is totally right up my alley. We started off the series talking about forgiveness. Tommy got up and gave his testimony and showed us a true example of forgiveness. One thing he said was "Forgiveness is not a justice issue, It's a heart issue." Forgiveness has always been a problem with me. For some reason I have a really hard time letting go of things. When someone wrongs me I put a wall up and block them out. I don't know if its a defense mechanism or just my stupid pride getting in the way but its just something I've always struggled with. About 8 months ago I came across a verse that I'm sure I've read a thousand times but it talked about how God will not forgive you if you do not forgive others. And let's be honest, after all I've done in my life I need God's forgiveness. But then it got me thinking. Is it really worth it to hold grudges? To block people out because of one thing? So over these past months I've been really trying to work on forgiveness daily. It takes effort and it takes me knocking down my pride and allowing myself to be vulnerable and honest. Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert forgiver but I am definitely getting better at it.
Tommy ended his message with somewhat of a challenge. He said think of that one person that you have had a hard time forgiving. Someone that hurt you or abandoned you or lied to you, whatever it was, think of that person and begin to pray for them. Honestly and wholeheartedly pray for them.
What struck me was the think of that one person, I really couldn't name one. Which made me extremely happy, thinking how far I've come that I've forgiven all the hurt from my past.
But I began to think, if we asked who that one person was to everyone we knew, how many of them would say my name? Is there someone out there that I have hurt and not asked for forgiveness from? There has to be. I HATE saying sorry and I HATE asking for forgiveness, it means I did something wrong and I hate admitting that I've done something wrong. Again, a pride issue that I need to work on. There was one person I thought of. One person that I know I had never apologized to. I don't know how many people could say my name, but this one person jumped directly into my head. This morning when I had a couple free minutes I got on facebook and swallowed my pride and asked for forgiveness from the person that I had thought of. A year ago, I could have never done that. Now, I'm just excited that I have come far enough to be able to something like that.
So what if we all examined our lives? Could your name be the one that popped into someones head? Is there someone that we need to apologize to? If so, let's do it.
