Bell ~ Let's Talk

Today, Wednesday, January 28th, is Bell Let's Talk Day, an initiative from Bell Canada that focuses on raising awareness about mental health issues.  The premise is simple and one that is close to my heart, that if people will tell their stories and listen to the stories of others, much of the stigma and shame associated with mental illness will be replaced by understanding, compassion and empathy.

My sister, Dana, started the story telling this morning by sharing her struggle with depression. The truth is that my family is and has been full of brave, intelligent, capable, resilient people who have walked their life paths hand in hand with the darkness of mental illness, including the black dog of depression, and in my life, anxiety.

I can't remember ever not being anxious.  From infancy and probably even earlier, for various reasons, my body and brain, my personality and intellect developed while awash in a potent cocktail of stress hormones, specifically cortisol.  From a very young age, I learned to deal with overwhelming stress by "disappearing."  I froze, withdrew, and was compliantly, passively and quietly non-existent.

Anxiety controlled my life.  "Disappearing" could, at least in some respects, protect me from the outward stressors, but I could never get away from the inner turmoil.  As an introvert, when faced with a fight or flight trigger (which, due to the chronic anxiety, happened often), I withdrew.  Shut down. Shut up. My mind, though, was rarely quiet.  I was, and am an introvert, but I am also passionate, thoughtful, strong minded and full of questions.  I struggled with the silence. I was bright and opinionated, but repeatedly had to choose safety over freedom.

Because I had never been free from anxiety, I thought everyone felt this way.  As an adult, I became a Christian and began to grow in faith. I heard over and over, "Fear not."  It had the authority of a command, but there was always a whisper of hope attached to it.  Fear not. Was that even possible? The God I knew, the One who had rescued me from a life of darkness, who loved me in ways that I was only beginning to understand, would not ask something of me that wasn't possible, that He couldn't or wouldn't help me acheive.  As I walked with Jesus, through Bible study and with the help of faithful and honest counsellors and friends, I began to gain control of my thought life. The Scriptures and God's intimate counsel led me through a path of cognitive training that set me free from negative thoughts that kept me trapped in fear.

One of the aspects of mental illness that is often overlooked involves physical symptoms. A lifetime of chronic anxiety had conditioned and fitted my body to react in extreme ways to situations and circumstances that my mind, emotions and stress hormones were slapping danger signs on.  Retraining my mind, and even my emotions set me free to some extent, but I soon realized that my body had a mind of its own in these matters.  I was diagnosed with a chronic bladder disease called interstitial cystitis (IC) or painful bladder syndrome (PBS) when I was in my early 30s.  One of the most consistent and frequent triggers was stress.  A few years after the IC diagnosis, I suffered a heart attack. I had no markers for heart disease, other than the fact that I was overweight.  My blood pressure and cholesterol were low to normal, I had no family history of heart disease, I didn't smoke or do drugs, and I was young. The diagnosis was coronary artery spasms, a condition that was very susceptible to stress. 

It felt like my body was saying, that's enough! I had to face the possibility that cognitive training and the peace that I felt in God was not going to stop my body from reacting to the stress of life.  I prayed for healing, and I knew that it was possible.  I had experienced healing in my mind and heart.  As I continued to struggle with the physical effects of stress, I began to think about asking for help from my doctor. As in meds. I hated the very thought of it. Nerve pills. Oh, pshaw.

I saw it as an easy fix, a sign of my weakness.  I never questioned the strength of my faith. God and I had been though that when I first got IC. I knew that He could heal me. There was no question in my mind. I struggled with Him, when He didn't heal me, and we worked it out.  Somehow, though, I had gotten to the point where I believed that I had to tough it out to be strong, that being brave always meant pushing through the fear, pushing, pushing, pushing until I wasn't afraid anymore.  Unfortunately, my body wasn't getting the message, and the pushing through was killing me. It was one thing when the stress only meant searing pain in my abdomen, but when it also meant my coronary arteries spazzing closed, choking off the blood supply to my heart, I needed to pay attention.

So I went on meds.  The first time I took a anti anxiety medication, I was at home. The phone rang, and as I answered it, I was acutely aware of an odd sensation. Or, more accurately, an odd lack of a sensation. Fear.  Every single time I heard a phone ring, a swoosh of adrenaline would go through my body, burning through my stomach and bladder, trembling my hands, muddling my thoughts. Except this time.  This time my stomach stayed calm. My hands didn't shake.  I was amazed.  Is this what normal feels like?

Adding anti anxiety medication to the cocktail of daily meds that I take for the IC and heart problem was the right choice for me.  I still struggle with anxiety, and I have moments when my body spirals out of control and all I can do is hang on and wait it out.  I have discovered that sorrow feels very much like fear to my body. Sometimes I choose to deal with triggering events and the resulting flash of anxiety and pain through yoga, meditation, deep breaths, laughter and reaching out to loved ones. The amount of medication that I take daily works for the stress of daily life. Sometimes I take less. Sometimes more. I pay close attention to my body, and try to take care of myself. I am learning to nurture my body in the same way that my heart calls me to nurture and care for those around me.

Chronic anxiety is still a part of my life, but it doesn't own me.  I am grateful for the availability of medications that can help, for the grace and understanding of my family, and for the opportunity to tell my story, and to listen to the stories of others.  Yes, there are dark voices from the past, taunting, mocking, complaining voices that grew angry at me when I could not be what they demanded me to be, but the loving voices are stronger, bolder and most importantly, truer. 

I pray that as we walk this path together, we will be encouraged and emboldened to turn to the voices that are saying to us, "Tell me your story. It's okay, I'm listening."

Tell me your story.  It's okay, I'm listening.

"A Joyful Awareness of Forgiveness..."

Today, I read this in Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel: "Any church that will not accept that it consists of sinful men and women, and exists for them, implicitly rejects the gospel of grace. As Hans Kung says, 'It deserves neither God's mercy nor men's trust. The church must constantly be aware that its faith is weak, its knowledge dim, its profession of faith halting, that there is not a single sin or failing which it has not in one way or another been guilty of. And though it is true that the church must always dissasociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinners at a distance. If the church remains self-righteously aloof from failures, irreligious and immoral people, it cannot enter justified into God's kingdom. But if it is constantly aware of its guilt and sin, it can live in joyous awareness of forgiveness. The promise has been given to it that anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.'"(Hans Kung, On Being A Christian)

A memory surfaced. A church board meeting, a lay leader looking me in the eye and intently stating that, "We do not tolerate sin in this church", the nodding, quiet approval of the rest of the board save the pastor, who was cringing in his seat and on trial as much as I was. I would be given five minutes to tell my story, to try to explain that I was not guilty of the sin I was being accused of. There would be many more minutes of accusations, rude comments and condemnation. I was not permitted to respond to the comments that followed my five minutes. Of the entire group, I had only personally discussed my situation with one of them. For the rest, their knowledge was based on hearsay, gossip, and evidently from the comments that they were making, lies. At the time, the accusations and betrayal by people I had trusted was traumatic enough, and my focus was on my pain, and the suffering of those who shared a part of my situation.

When I read this quote from The Ragamuffin Gospel, though, the passage of time and healing of hurts afforded me a new perspective. I heard the words again, "We do not tolerate sin in this church.", and in my mind's eye I looked out at the serious, determined faces of the members of the church, and my heart broke for them. At the time, as now, I did not believe that the senitment expressed was that of God. While I was not guilty of the sin on the table at that meeting, I am not innocent. I know that I struggle with sin. And I know that God accepts me.

I remember the words of Jesus well, "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:13. And, God's love is expressed in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." I cannot overlook the glorious confession of the apostle Paul, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." 1Tim 1:15

The thing that broke my heart, when I thought about that meeting, was the foul stench of a lie that drifted up from the seemingly logical words, spread out and dispersed over an entire room of sinners, who heard and agreed that God does not accept sin, or those that sin. I knew the people in that room. I knew that not one of them were clean. We had been friends for many years. I knew who despised their spouses, who had terrorized their spouses, children, even co-workers with their anger, who chose fear and mistrust of God over trust and lived worried, hand-wringing lives because of it, who was the town gossip, who was mocked at work for claiming to be a christian because of rude, arrogant, dishonest behavior at the jobsite, who struggled with pornography, bitterness, slander, or worship of money, food, success, or entertainment over God. The only difference between us was a power inequality. They were board members and lay leaders. They had the power. And they believed on some level that God does not accept them as they are. That is a tragedy.

How does one, as a sinner, maintain that God does not accept sinners while running a church filled with sinners? What kind of mental, emotional and spiritual gymnastics does it take to manouver around the fact that one is a sinner? How does one live so close to, as Kung writes, the "joyous awareness of forgiveness" without availing oneself of it by confessing sin and humbling oneself to the God of truth and mercy? How fearful, to sit with arms and legs crossed, narrowed eyes, keeping the secret of one's sin in by pushing the sinful away from the only One who can save.

Oh, but we mustn't condone it. Condone what? The sin that is eating you alive? Of course not! How is it condoning sin, when a Bible study teacher grasps the hands of a drug addict as they pray together for freedom from their sin? When a pastor links arms with a thief as they humbly walk to the foot of the cross, together? Confess their sins together? Receive freedom together? The message we preach is not, "Come to Christ and be perfect like me!" It is, "Come to Christ and know the love that has always been there for both of us!"

The irony is that in order to avoid condoning sin, the church nurtures it among her members by encouraging pride, deception and denial of sin, thereby preventing repentance and confession, which leads to freedom from sin.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place." 2 Chronicles 7:13-15

Following Jesus - The Unmerciful Servant/How does our sin compare?

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:23 - 35




If you are anything like me, you sometimes have an internal dialogue that goes something like this;

"I can't believe she did that! I mean, I know that I do things wrong, too, but that's just nasty. Plus, at least I try to do the right thing. Look at all the people she's hurting! When I mess up, at least the only person I hurt it myself..."

Now, I have to confess, the more I see myself from God's perspective, the less I indulge in conversations like the above. Having a fifteen year old daughter who knows me better than I know myself also helps in this area. The temptation, though, to compare my sin with the sin of others and make sure I come out favorably is strong. It is also one of the things that can make forgiving others more difficult.

Be honest now, doesn't it feel less sinful to cheat the government or McDonald's out of money than it does to cheat your best friend? Isn't it easier to lie to a stranger than to your wife? It is possible to speculate that the unmerciful servant considered his huge debt to an already unspeakably wealthy king as less of a wrong than his friend's small debt to him, someone without wealth. After all, doesn't the king make his money through taxes from the people? The servant's large debt is just a drop in the bucket. $20.00 would really come in handy. Besides, friends pay back friends.

It is clear to all of us that the consequences of different sins vary in severity. I would much rather someone be rude to my daughter than to wound her physically or take her life. The tendency is to judge the wrongness of certain sins according to the severity of the consequences, or potential consequences. This makes sense when it comes to human justice. Jail time for robbing a convenience store should be less than for taking a human life. Society allots punishments according to a standard that is generally agreed on by members of the society. Still, we are prone to desire leniency for ourselves. Harsh drunk driving penalties make perfect sense to the parents of teens learning to drive. For the one who routinely drives drunk, the penalties indicate that someone is making a big deal out of nothing. The drunk driver, though, will agree that first degree murder penalties should be severe.

I believe that it is a part of the sin nature within us all, that we have a blind spot when it comes to our own sin. For most of us, the issues aren't as large as drunk driving verse murder. We struggle with sins that seem smaller, and can lure us into believing that our failure to meet the standard of Jesus is much more benign than it is.

Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. Indulge in sin, and the payment you will receive is spiritual death and destruction. Galatians 5 highlights the acts of the sinful natures, and sins such as hate, jealously, selfish ambition and being drunk keep company with orgies, witchcraft and idolatry. God sees sin differently than we do. Sin destroys. Jesus, in this parable, is equating our sin debt as humongous, while the individual sins that we are asked to forgive in others are small in comparison. I understand that the consequences of the sins committed against us can be devastating. I have found myself, on too many occasions to count, crumpled in a wounded pile because of the sin and betrayal of others. There are sins that could be committed against me that I cannot imagine being able to forgive. I have been left speechless in the face of what people have had to endure because of monstrous, horrific sin. I do not write this lightly. In fact, I write this only because I have complete faith in the wondrous freedom that God offers us when we walk in His ways.

'It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Refusing forgiveness to another means refusing forgiveness for ourselves. We have been set free from our own sin, and it was not so that we could be enslaved to resentment, anger, rage and hatred because of the sins of others! The unmerciful servant was set free from his debt, but he left the castle an enslaved man, and when he met his friend, he behaved as an enslaved man, which led to him becoming, in reality, an enslaved man again.

It may be scary to see ourselves as we truly are, but we must allow Jesus to show us our true selves, from His eyes of love. We will at once be shamed by the reality of our sin debt, and full of joy at the pure, unadulterated love in His eyes as the reality of our canceled debt sinks in. The power of God within us can literally change our anger into love, our pain into something wonderful, our forgiveness into a gift that changes our world.

Following Jesus - The Unmerciful Servant//Has The Gift Been Received?

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:23 - 35


It should be easier to forgive others in light of how much believers in Christ have been forgiven. But it isn't. When I am hurt, I struggle to forgive. While the pain may be in my heart, the battle is in my head. The arguments, justifications, memories, and angry words are in my head. I think most of us are like that. When we lie awake at night, it's because we are thinking. It's hard to turn our brains off when we have been hurt. So, what are we thinking? What was the unmerciful servant thinking?

We can't really know exactly what he was thinking, as the scripture doesn't tell us. We can speculate, though. One thing that I have always suspected lies in the fact that the servant begged the king for more time to pay off his debt, while the king actually canceled the debt. I don't know whether it was arrogance, pride or desperation that led to the promise to repay the debt, because it was an impossible one for him to pay. It just wasn't going to happen. No doubt he desired to pay it off. Having to borrow money can be painful enough to the pride. Not being able to pay it back is so much worse. Is it possible that he did not catch the word "cancel" coming out of the king's mouth? Or that he understood that the king was canceling the debt, but still intended to pay it back? Maybe he didn't want to accept charity. Maybe it made him feel small and weak. Maybe he had a "Real men pay their debts" bumper sticker on his donkey. Whatever the case, it is obvious that he did not leave the castle with any sense of gratitude, which means that while he was given a huge gift, he somehow did not receive it.

So, he's walking down the road making plans to pull in a few debts himself, gather a bit of money, maybe start making payments to the king. When he meets up with a fellow servant who owes him a few bucks, the collecting starts. His friend doesn't have the money and begs for more time, for mercy. The unmerciful servant is unrelenting. Who has more time? He has debts to pay! To the king! For goodness sake, he's still shaking from the thought of being sold to pay his debt! And if he has to pay back his debt, so does his friend. There is no time for mercy, no room for kindness.

Now, I don't know that this is what he was thinking. But I see that this is what some of us think. We come to Jesus with an awareness of our sin debt, we know what we have become, what we have done. Jesus gives us full forgiveness, our debt is canceled, washed away, leaving us clean and whole, in full relationship with Jesus. We may walk away with a sense of relief and love, but then things get weird. We are told that we are fully forgiven by the mercy of God, but then we are given a list of rules to follow, and we realize there is an expectation that we do things. Tithe. Stop swearing. Take our turn in the nursery. Lengthen our skirts. We may experience disapproval by the church if we do not do these things. They are expected. We thought we were signing into a relationship with Jesus that was based on His love for us, but we find that it seems we actually signed into a way of doing things that would please God...to earn His love? No, they say that's not why we do the things we do, but it seems like it. They say our faith should show itself in works. We get that. But we just met Jesus, and our faith is small. Shouldn't the focus be on growing our faith? Could we just spend a little time with Jesus, like a honeymoon or something?

In any case, the work begins and confusion can set in. If we are good workers, we feel good about ourselves and may begin to feel like God really approves of us. If we struggle, we sometimes sense resentment from certain members of the church. We see that the majority of their contact with us is designed to resolve our issues, not to be our friends. We can't get together with the more mature Christians for coffee and fellowship without it becoming a counseling session because the thing that seems to stand out about us is not our hopes and dreams and loves and fears and joys, but our failure to do what we're supposed to be doing. Sometimes it is our own pride that leaves us determined to earn our way to God. Yes, He offers it freely, but we are able to earn it. We need to at least try. After all, doesn't God help those who help themselves?

This doesn't happen to all of us, but it can happen. And when it does, we leave the church as the servant left the castle, believing that we have just been given another opportunity to earn what we owe. The gift has been given, but not received. The result is anger, resentment and a lack of kindness and mercy to others who owe us a sin debt.

The initial meeting with Jesus, like the servant's meeting with the king, is to deal with the sin debt that interferes with our relationship with Him. We can't be close to Him because our sin keeps us at arms' length. God forgives our sin totally, and the relationship is begun. It is full, complete, unrestricted and unhampered. It's literally starting the relationship at the marriage altar. We are the bride, He is the Bridegroom. Nothing can separate us from His love. From there, we certainly need to get to know this wonderful new Person in our lives, but nothing we do from here on in will be any more effective than anything we could have done in the past to earn God's love and forgiveness.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:9 - 10

The stuff that we do for God is done out of gratitude, love and a sense of purpose. It is like the servant who had been forgiven a large debt frequently showing up at the castle to tend the roses outside the king's bedroom because he knows the king loves the scent and beauty of the flowers. It is done not to earn forgiveness, but to celebrate it!

When we fully grasp our freedom because of what Jesus has done for us, the celebration begins. It is important, if we are struggling to forgive others, to ask God to show us if, in our hearts, we have really received the gift of forgiveness that He has given. It would be a tragedy to live out our lives with this glorious gift left in a back closet, still unwrapped. Once we receive it, truly and fully, it gets much easier to offer the same to others. We may need a reminder once in a while from God, to be graceful and merciful. But when He speaks, it will be a reminder that will result in quick attitude, mind and heart changes.

If you have come to Jesus Christ and asked Him for forgiveness for your sins, make sure you have fully unwrapped the gift of forgiveness! Throw the wrapping paper in the air with joy, twirl around the room with the ribbons hanging from your hands! Show your gift to anyone who is interested. Illustrate the wonder of the gift by giving them your forgiveness freely, as a sample of the gift outstretched in God's hand. Never stop celebrating, never stop thanking Him, never stop reveling in the awesomeness of it all. By doing this, you ensure that the next time someone needs your forgiveness, your cup of joy and mercy will be so full it will splash over on them before they are finished asking!

Following Jesus - The Unmerciful Servant

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:23 - 35

Once again, Jesus is blowing open the boundaries of something that most of us would rather be kept boxed. Forgiveness. The thing is, here He is explaining why.

A king calls in a servant who owes him ten thousand talents. This is a huge amount of money. Millions. It's more than any servant would ever be able to pay. Because the servant can't pay it, the king is going to sell him and his family and all his belongings to recoup his losses. The servant begs for time to pay the king back, an empty promise if ever there was one. There is no way he can do this, but in times of great stress, promises are easy to make, if hard to keep. The king had pity on him, and canceled the debt.

Canceled the debt. That's an easy point to miss. He didn't let his servant go in hopes that he would get paid back. He knew it wouldn't happen. Imagine the feeling. The huge weight of debt and destruction is lifted. The servant went from a destroyed life to one of hope as the debt that has been hanging over him for so long is gone.

How would you feel in his place? As you left the palace, what would be going through your mind and heart? Would you be shaking from gratitude and excitement? Would you be eager to go home to tell your family the good news? Would you be joyful, relieved, even tearful?

We can tell a lot about a person and what they are feeling by the way they behave. And this is the way the servant behaved. He went out and found a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii, the equivalent of maybe twenty dollars. When his friend could not pay him, the servant grabbed him, roughed him up and had him thrown into debtor's prison until he could pay the money back.

Of course, the king hears about the incident, as kings are wont to do, and iss outraged. He can not understand how, having had such a large debt canceled, the servant could go out and show no mercy to one who owed him so little. He throws the unmerciful servant into prison to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed, which was effectively, for the rest of his life.

Then Jesus adds the clincher.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

How could it be, that one who had been forgiven a debt so large could still feel justified in punishing one in debt to him? What was he thinking? We really don't have to go too far to get more insight into this. For many of us, it's as close as our own hearts. We shake our heads at the unmerciful servant, but we have all been forgiven huge sin debts. We've experienced the beginning of the story first hand if we have asked Jesus to forgive our sins, to cancel our sin debt. Jesus is talking to us, about us. If we have experienced the first half of the story, then we need to look at how we have done in the "forgiving others" part. This is important, because our King knows what's in our hearts. And the consequences, when the King sees us being unmerciful to someone who hurts us while He has shown such mercy to us...well, Jesus paints a picture of the consequences that should make us shudder.

There's no point in thinking that we can glide past the castle and escape the eye of the King, who, after all, loves us. The king in Jesus' parable cared for his servant so much, he canceled the debt without even being asked to. This is about a king who loves all his servants.

If we really look at it, it's all very practical. It should be easy to forgive each other when we have been forgiven of so much. I believe, as in many spiritual battles, this one begins in the mind. We become deceived and confused because of lies we believe, and the result is disastrous. Our wills and anger are strengthened by what we choose to believe. Freedom comes with confession of the lies, a desire for yet more forgiveness for allowing ourselves to be deceived, and a renewing of our minds through God's power in us.

Tomorrow I will address some of the lies that we can fall into, some things the unmerciful servant might have been thinking that led to his actions. This is important stuff, because we, like the unmerciful servant, have access to more freedom than we can imagine. That's if we don't mess it up on the way home.

Following Jesus...Forgiveness

"In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. " Ephesians 1:7-8

Forgiveness is a hard thing. Sometimes we are afraid that if we forgive, the other person will "get away with" their actions. It's as if forgiveness and justice don't go together. We have an inherent need for justice, and worry that by forgiving, we are over-looking the offense. Add to this the fact that we are hurt, and forgiveness is a hard thing.

Forgiveness is also hard for God. Remember the price that He had to pay to provide it. If we ever wonder if God understands how hard it is to forgive, we simply need to look at the cross, and imagine that pain of a father watching his son being beaten, tortured and crucified. God is just. God is fair. And fairness demanded a payment for sin. The cross is the powerful evidence of God's mercy and justice. If we trust God to handle our sin, and receive His gift of salvation with gratitude, we can also trust Him to handle the sins of others. Are we afraid that He might be as merciful to others as He is to us? His mercy is for everyone or it is for no one. The cross of Christ encompasses the sin of the world. He is dealing with it, He is addressing it. The difference between the way God deals with sin and the way we do is that His ways are always redemptive. That means that the underlying motive behind everything God does is to save people from their sin and to bring them back into a relationship with Him.

When my daughter was small, I spent a lot of time explaining the point of discipline to her. I wanted her to know that I was not punishing her. Punishment is payback. An eye for an eye. Discipline is designed to teach, motivate, and restore. The lines between the two can get blurry, and I needed her to see that my goal was to help her be the kind of child that she wanted to be, and to keep her relationships with her parents and friends intact. Discipline was not about earning forgiveness. Forgiveness was immediate, and in fact I made a point of trying not to deal with her wrongdoings until I had forgiven her. Otherwise, I could easily slip into punishment-mode, and I didn't want that. Discipline encompassed the entire process of setting boundaries, implementing consequences at broken boundaries, discussion and teaching, and always, reconciliation. It was redemptive discipline, designed to create and guard relationships.

I believe God works like this too. In fact, I learned it from God. He's the Master Parent. God never asks more from us than He is willing to give Himself. He blows the boundaries of giving sky-high. And then some.

Following Jesus - The Unmerciful Servant//Are You Mistaken?

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Matthew 18:21 - 22


Peter was being generous. One thing that is important to notice here is that Peter is asking about forgiving people who have sinned against him. This means people who have intentionally hurt us, who have chosen to do or say something that is morally wrong, wounding us in the process. He is not talking about mistakes, those accidents, trip ups, stumbles and messes that happen because we are human and fallible. Telling a woman one has just met that she is a fat, ugly cow is sin. Asking her when her baby is due when, in fact, she isn't pregnant, is a mistake. Mistakes happen when we don't know enough, aren't physically strong, capable or quick enough or can't remember enough.

We live in a world that can get pretty harsh with mistakes. Accidentally bumping into someone on the street will get you at least a angry look, and sometimes a flurry of angry words as well. Even in the church, we can be an easily irritated, grumpy, demanding lot. Someone is too slow, in the wrong check-out counter or highway lane, gives the wrong change, uses grammar the wrong way, accidentally damages our property, and we get angry. We don't like to call it anger. So we call it our "pet peeve". It's a way to fool ourselves into thinking our attitudes about others are more benign than they really are. Let's face it, sometimes we get downright venomous about other peoples mistakes. One only has to look at the entries on a few social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter to see people venting with hot, ugly rage about people making mistakes.

The assumption behind all this anger is that we don't make mistakes, so how can other people be so "stupid"? I think another factor is that we inevitably assume negative motives to other peoples mistakes. The guy who cut us off on the highway was purposely insulting us. The cashier who gave us too little change was trying to rob us. The person who bumped up against us wanted to hurt us. We can't really know if our assumptions are true or not, but they give us permission to give full vent to the anger inside of us. Consequently, we miss opportunities to be graceful, and to show gratitude for the abundant grace that we have been given.

The single most effective way that I have found to lessen irritation and refrain from anger when someone hurts me mistakenly is to keep in mind how fallible I am, how many mistakes I make, how much forgiveness I have received. Understanding how lousy I am at many things makes me kind to those who are at least trying. Even when I am good at something, I can be graceful to others who aren't because I know that they excel differently than I do, and I may need grace from them. It may sting to admit that we are fallible, but it only stings for a short time. The anger and resentment at the mistakes of others burn holes into our souls.

Jesus and Peter are talking about forgiving people who purposely mean to hurt them. Jesus' answer, seventy-seven times, (or in other translations, seventy times seven), indicated infinity. Always. Every time. If that is the case, then how much more should we be willing to forgive those who accidentally hurt us?

Being a fallible person living among fallible people is "grace-school". It is where we learn to love unconditionally and radically. Every error is an opportunity to be kind, a chance to touch someone with God's love. Even if they never hear your vent, someone else will. What do our children learn when they hear us tearing apart someone who inconvenienced us by their mistakes? How can our friends relax around us when they know that you may be venting about them, next? Christ followers know that there is no pain like the pain of anger and bitterness in their hearts. And there is no joy like the joy of offering peace and kindness to others. God is so patient with us. If we are brave enough to ask Him to show us how many mistakes we make, how many people we hurt, we might find that we have plenty of reason for grace to others.

Recently my fifteen year old daughter and I were talking about one of the most difficult periods of our lives, when her dad and I divorced. My daughter told me that there were things about her dads behavior and why he left that she wasn't told at the time, and only learned later. She shared how confused she had felt at the time. I honestly thought I had kept her informed, and had dealt with these issues with her. I think what happened was that in my desire to protect her from being hurt, I told her what was happening but I did it in such an abstract, euphemism-riddled way that it was not clear to her, as a 11 year old. In trying to protect her, I failed her and caused her more pain. She was so gracious to forgive me, though. When I think of things like that, my daughter allowing God to love me through her, offering forgiveness and love to me, how can I do less for others? We all make mistakes, and as hard as we try, we will make more tomorrow. Anger and condemnation crumples the soul and make it all the more difficult for people to do better.

If we cannot be graceful towards the mistakes of others, how will we ever be able to forgive those who hurt us through sin?

Following Jesus - The Unmerciful Servant

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

"Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:21 - 35

It starts with a question again. Such is often the case with a Rabbi and his disciples. The disciples listen and ponder, asking questions about things they struggle to understand. It is also possible, human nature being what it is, that questions were asked in order to show how much the questioner already knew. When Peter asked, how many times should I forgive my brother, and suggested seven times might be appropriate, he was being generous. Numbers often have special meanings in the Bible. The number one signifies the beginning, The One; number three signifies the Godhead, the three in one; and the number seven signifies perfection, completeness. Peter was offering a very generous picture of forgiveness. He had been there with Jesus when Jesus taught crowds of people in what is famously called the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5 - 7. He heard Jesus refer to the Old Testament teaching of reciprocal payment for wrongs done, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

At the time, Jesus said to them, "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." The entire sermon on the mountain to a multitude of people was a revolutionary teaching. The Old Testament addressed sin as it needed to be addressed in a time when full forgiveness was not yet available. The OT taught the people of Israel what sin costs. And it is pricey. The price has not changed, by the way. To pay for knocking someone's tooth out in a fight by having one of your own teeth knocked out is cheap compared to the fact that the price of sin, ultimately, is death.

We kind of like the OT way of dealing with sin, though, don't we? Especially...okay, pretty much only when it applies to other peoples sin. What if, when you pocketed the extra $20.00 the cashier accidentally gave you in change, it automatically came out of your bank account, the $20.00 you stole and an extra $20.00 for payment for the steal? What if every time you lose your temper with your child or spouse, shooting verbal bullets with devastating results, your boss does the same to you when you get to work? What if every bit of gossip that leaves your mouth is met with a bit of gossip about your life? Ouch.

Jesus' sermon on the mountain stings only if we are looking at other peoples sin. And let's be honest, it is much easier to be aware of what other people are doing to us than it is to know what we are doing to others. We can have a tendency to amplify the sins of others, while minimizing our own. I remember working with a woman who routinely pocketed samples of the product that we were making on the job site. To her, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, and she actually got angry at me for not wanting to do the same. One day, her lighter was stolen from the lunch room. She was horrified. She grumbled about how the other workers were "a bunch of thieves". I knew her well, and felt close enough to her to point out the discrepancy in her views. She maintained that "it's not the same thing!" It was humbling to realize that I am prone to do the same thing, and to look just as foolish to God.

Peter was being generous given what he had been taught, all of his life, about forgiveness. He was graciously pushing the boundary of forgiveness to the very edge of the neighborhood. I can almost see Jesus smiling at him, at his effort to be generous, at his desire to be extravagant in the manner of the Rabbi he loved. Jesus loves our efforts to meet Him where we think He is.

"Open your arms, your heart, your faith as wide as you can, child. And then let me stretch you farther than you could even imagine!"

Following Jesus

One thing that I didn't get right away in my relationship with Jesus was that I was someone who sinned. I guess I knew it intellectually, but I didn't realize the seriousness of it. I knew that God was holy and just, and that the penalty for sin is death. Somebody has to die spiritually to pay the price for my sin. But death was a long way away in my mind and I just didn't think I was that bad. I learned that sin was more than a set of acts that are wrong - sin is a position that we take, in that we choose to reject God. God, by very virtue of being God, makes the terms. Heaven is His domain. I realized that I couldn't expect to live my life as if He didn't exist, or to insult Him totally by telling Him that I would be in charge of this relationship and He would adapt to me, and still show up in Heaven looking for my mansion. The last thing that I needed was a God that I could control. I couldn't even control myself by putting the fork down when I needed to, and was overweight because of it. And that was only one of the areas of my weakness. No, I needed a powerful, just, all-knowing, ever-present God. And the only thing separating me from Him was my sin. As all of this began to sink into my mind, I began to be overwhelmingly grateful and amazed at the solution God provided. Someone had to pay the price. What I needed was to be forgiven of my sin, to have the debt erased, which seems like a pretty wild thing to even expect or hope for. Could God let me get away with years of rejecting Him?

Then I read this, from the apostle Paul in Acts 13:38, "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through Him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses."

In Romans 3:21 - 27, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so that to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."

Justice says that no, God can't let me get away with it. It's funny, how there are times when we think that our "stuff" isn't so bad and should be overlooked, but we certainly don't want those who hurt us to have their "stuff" overlooked. I understood the feeling. But I was beginning to understand that God loves everyone as much as He loves me, and as angry as it makes Him when others hurt me, He is also angered by the things I do and say to hurt others. It just wouldn't be fair. And at this point, there was no point pretending that I hadn't ever really hurt anyone. I had. There was also, hallelujah, no reason to pretend I hadn't hurt anyone. Because not only was Jesus my new "best thing that had ever happened to me" friend, He was also the payment for my sin. When He died on the cross, He was paying my sin debt, along with the sin debt of the entire world, if they wanted Him to. It was my choice. He was the perfect sacrificial lamb.

In a very real sense, by believing that Jesus lived and still lives today and died to pay my sin debt, and by asking Him to provide forgiveness for me, I was tying myself to Him for life. I belonged to Him. I was His disciple. But what a person to belong to! I asked a question at the end of yesterday's post. Why (and when) did it get all complicated and difficult? I think it got complicated and difficult when I began to confuse belonging to the person of Jesus Christ with belonging to religion, or a set of man-made rules and regulations that we hope will enable us to please God. It may sound like the two go together, but in fact they are total opposites. Tomorrow I'll discuss why.