An Attitude of Forgiveness?

On the weekend I participated in a forgiveness exercise. It always hits me right between the eyes how easy it is to say the words "I forgive you" but how hard it is to actually follow through.

The phrase in the Lord's prayer 'forgive us our trespasses' always gets me - since being sinned against does feel a lot like someone has trespassed on what is mine. And the translation 'forgive us our debts' also gets me, because when someone sins against me I feel like they owe me, whether it's an apology or restitution or something else.

I find it very helpful to pray a specific prayer of forgiveness, since by doing that I make sure I am actually forgiving, and not just solemnly saying saying the words but still holding on to parts. It goes like this:

_______ (their name) has trespassed against me.

She/he has ________________ (I make a list)
God you are a God of justice and compassion. I choose to trust you God to act justly on my behalf in the situations I have listed here and any that I have forgotten. I release _______ from all she/he owes me due to her/his sin against me. I forgive and cancel that debt I thought she/he owed me; including expecting realizations, admissions, apologies or repayment from her/him. I cancel every reason I have hung on to harbour resentment and hold regret in my thinking, my emotions, my body, my relationships and in my daily life. She/he owes me nothing now, and I trust you God to restore. I trust you God to deal with her/him yourself with justice and with mercy, according to your promises. Jesus forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me.

I release _________ from all my judgements about her/him and against her/him as a result of my hurt, my anger and my own desire for justice. Jesus forgive me for being the judge when you alone are the only true judge. I renounce my judgements of _______ and my false right to be their judge. I am sorry for carrying this offense in my beliefs, my thinking, my other relationships and even with you. Forgive me for holding it in my heart, for agreeing with others and for anything I have said against her/him. I ask you Jesus for my own release from any reaping that has occurred in my own life as a result of my judgements, according to your word 'judge not, lest you yourself be judged', and 'you shall reap what you sow'.

Jesus I bless ________ to walk in your love and forgiveness. I bless her/his heart to serve and to love you. I bless the work of her/his hands. I ask you to be with her/him in love and mercy, bringing true freedom and healing to her/him in your time and in your way.

Now Lord I want to exchange my thoughts for your thoughts, and my own beliefs for your truth.
I thought ________ was ______________ and _____________.
But you see _________ was/is ___________ and ______________. Thank you Jesus. I now choose to agree with you and see _________ and speak of her/him in that way too.

Thank you for your faithfulness to me Jesus. I ask for your protection from the attack of the enemy on my life, my faith and my relationships. I ask all these things in and through your holy name Jesus, Amen.
______________ (my signature)
* the ideas for and parts of this prayer are (adapted) from prayers in Healing Your Financial Soul by David Hicks. http://www.healingyourfinancialsoul.com

Sounds easy? Not so much.

This prayer has got me thinking about whether or not I have an attitude of forgiveness in my life. Could I just be more forgiving over all, instead of needing to pray this prayer so often?

Do I think people owe me something? Do I have expectations that I expect people to meet? (and when they don't do I get ticked?)
Do I really trust God to carry out justice on my behalf? Do I know he has my back? Am I okay with leaving the defence of me to him?
Do I hold resentment or even just hold back from some people because of an interaction or two, or three, that didn't thrill me?
Do I agree with others in negative conversations about someone?
Do I think I have the right to judge people?
Do I make decisions (judgements) about someone's character or about a situation or decision they have made?
Do I ask God what he thinks about someone and about the way he sees them, before I speak about them to someone else?

Then yesterday afternoon I came across this verse in James 3:2 'We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.'

Perhaps I should start there.

The Gift and The Giver

gravity holds me
the sun warms me
beauty comforts me
air fills my lungs
and food nourishes my body

It is all a glimpse of the love and mercy of God - this gift, this beautiful creation.

It's depressing how we take this incredible gift and try to control it, we alter it to suit our selfish wishes, we think we own it.
We do not respect it, nurture it or preserve it.
We do not consider the heart and intent of the artist.
We use creation to meet our needs and satisfy our pleasures.
We allow only beauty and orderliness, and so we destroy its ability to renew itself.
We reject the natural cycles where life comes from death and where death nourishes the earth by our obsessive need to clean up decay and remove dead things.
We intervene to alter or control its cycles and connections, assuming that our knowledge is complete.

Our idea that we own it has brought death.
Our attempts to control it handicap and disable its natural life and function.
Our desire to force it to meet our own needs has upset its delicate balance and destroyed the most fragile, beautiful and unique connections in the systems.

In our obsession to force creation to meet our own needs we are destroying the gift. In turn, its benefit to us, which was intended to be vast and complete, is slowly shrinking. Eventually in destroying it we will destroy ourselves.

It dawned on me today like a smack in the head that this is true not just for plants and animals and eco-systems, but for people.

Our selfishness, false ownership and control destroys others.

We do not trust the giver of the gift, and so we destroy the gift itself, just as we have done and are doing to our natural environment.

and so I prayed several time with several different names - and even the church -

Jesus I give you _______ (inserted names here). Forgive me for thinking I own them, any part of them, the relationship I have with them or any of their processes. Forgive me for trying to clean _______ up and for interfering in their life processes. Forgive me for trying to control _________. Forgive me for trying to hasten their growth and remove anything I don't like or understand. You are the giver Jesus, you are the source of __________'s life and beauty. You are in control and everything is yours. Redeem and repair what has already been destroyed in them and in me, Jesus, in your own way and in your own time. I recognize you are the creator and the giver of this gift, and that you give good gifts to your children. Forgive me Jesus.

It was powerful...and I was surprised who came to mind...how controlling am I? sheesh.

When I am weak, you are strong

I continue to struggle about my limitations, weaknesses, and inabilities. If you have been reading my blog for any time at all maybe you are raising your eyebrows and sighing right now. Still???? Me too, believe me. However, I am thinking that I am here over and over again because this is where Jesus is for me - there is real discovery and growth here in this place of honesty and frustration, even though I don't much like it. So I keep writing about it, because I am longing for all of us to share the reality, the struggle, the real christian life; one of frustration and unbelief and feelings of loneliness and failure and 'will I ever get it?' - with each other.

This week here is what I wrote in my journal after voicing my frustrations and anxiety to God yet again. Then I asked Jesus to speak to me, waited a bit, and kept on writing:

"The way into strength is the way into weakness. Until we truly know and understand what we cannot do, what we are unable to accomplish despite our best efforts, how tired and weak we are, how little we really are consistently good at, how selfish we are, how much self-defensiveness and guilt and fear is in our hearts...until we truly know all of that about ourselves, we will never be truly great. We will only make great efforts and give great gifts here and there, demonstrating the love of God sporadically and inconsistently, taking frequent breaks as our own struggles ebb and flow. Consistency and reliability can only come when we have willingly and quietly and wholly embraced our limitations, and when we truly know the grace of God poured out on us in the midst of all that."

This morning in worship the Lord reminded me again that Isreal means 'he struggles with God'. In worship at church I sometimes stress about getting into the right frame of mind, and about keeping up with the victorious shouts or spiritual enthusiasm of others. "Gee, everyone seems to be all excited about God right now, so why do I stand here feeling like sh--?" He reminded me that he loves and invites my struggle. That he does not require the correct posture of me or the correct mindset even in worship; that he just wants me to face him, to turn his way. He doesn't tell me I should have a victorious mentality or even a mind fixed on him and not on my problems...he just wants to be invited to be with me wherever I am.

I think christians who have been so for a long time can build up layers of concepts and ideals and yes, scriptures, of what we should think, how we should live, how much faith we should have, how to say things the right way, what is okay to share with other christians and what isn't, and even what is acceptable to say to God and what isn't. It takes a lot of scraping off all that for us to be able to be gut-wrenchingly honest with God and with ourselves. It isn't fun or easy, and it can feel like we are going away from victory and faith, and not toward it. But that is when and where real change happens and where real victories are won. Just applying an applicable bible verse or a slab of 'faith' over the wound sometimes smothers healing, it doesn't bring it.

Jean Vanier says that is why we need the visibly weak and broken in our communities -because when we reach out and love those who cannot be fixed we remind ourselves too that our value is in who we are, not in what we can do. And when we love those who are broken and not yet healed we remember too that God loves us all no matter where we are on our journey. He has no requirement for us to reach significant milestones at appropriate intervals in our christian life. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

a variety of beautiful dead leaves on my lawn...

He/She who has ears to hear...Let him/her hear...

I wonder if my own voice drowns out the gracious voice of God sometimes. I am sitting here with a question for God staring off my journal's page at me, and hearing nothing from Him. But my own voice is loud...my heart fears that God will be harsh and demand me to sacrifice more and more, to work harder, to live with less, to give up everything I love.

I think that this underlying belief prevents me from having accurate conversations with God sometimes - I have an "I know what you are going to say" self-protective attitude - which ends conversation and makes it impossible to hear truly what He is trying to say. The kids do this with their Dad sometimes and I stress about how unfair it is, and how much it shuts the door to any outcome that could be different from what they expect. It's like it totally shuts their ears to hearing anything other than the answer they think they already know.

Is this what Jesus meant when he kept saying "He that has ears to hear, let him hear" all the time? Was this actually a prayer on his part? Or a warning, a challenge? Or a reminder? Can we truly hear what he is saying, or are we hearing what we have already decided he is going to say?

Jesus forgive me for my arrogance in thinking that I know you, for my decision to go with how everything around me - everything I have heard and observed and my own interpretation of the same - has created my view of who you are. Forgive me for every time I have made a decision in my heart about your character without even consulting you or letting you at least explain yourself, or without even consulting your word about who you say you are.

Jesus untangle this messed up, knotted mass of beliefs I have created about you over the years. Find the end Jesus, and gently pull and tug and undo knots and twists; tie broken bits together until it is a straight line to who you truly are.

Luke 19:20-28 (New International Version)

20"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'

22"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'

24"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'

25" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'

26"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.

The end of summer and the coming of cold and snow is announced with such beauty!

In What Tone of Voice? The Perils of Email, Texting and the Written Word

Isn't it weird that here we are in the 21st century and back to relying on the written word?! My kids are abandoning the telephone in favour of email, facebook and esp. texting. Apparently I am just about the only person to actually call them on their cell phones.

The weird thing is that the written word is so inefficient; it's so one-dimensional. There is no gestures, body language, facial expressions and esp. tone of voice to help us understand the message. The number of times people get annoyed at another just because they heard the message in a particular tone is...like, wow.

The thing is, when you read an email or a text or a facebook message, whose voice do we read it in? Yours? Theirs? what if I don't know the sender very well? In that case, the tone of voice I hear when I read can totally depend on what kind of day I am having, and have nothing to do with the sender at all.

I am sure you have experienced reading an email and being totally taken aback by the tone, be it bossy or condesending or snotty or whatever. Some people seem to just type and hit send with no thought to how something might sound when it is read! My husband refers to these as 'snot-grams.' I have been guilty myself of not taking enough care in how I choose my words, and then I have had to spend a lot of time trying to make amends with someone. I have even prefaced an email by saying "please read this in my very nicest tone of voice!"

I was reading a scripture passage the other day that I couldn't get my head or heart around, and I suudenly thought of that. Here we have the whole bible, which is supposed to be God's written word to us. But in what tone of voice? It seems to me that that is a huge question! Try reading passage outloud in two ways, one in an exasperated tone, and the other in a compassionate tone. Totally different! It makes me wonder how often we have interpreted the word of God in a tone of voice completely different than He meant when it was written down. And I wonder where does the tone I hear in my head as I read come from? myself? my mood? That is a bit scary, and possibly more than a bit unfair...

So I have been trying something - I have been asking the Holy Spirit "what tone of voice did you say this in?" when I start to read. I pause for a minute or two, and then read it again. Does it make a difference? Actually yes it does. Seems to me it is a pretty important question to ask.

watching the heron move in closer, closer...