Forgive

If I had but a single word to share for my friends and myself to carry into the New Year, it would be "forgive."

FORGIVENESS opens the way to freedom from my own guilt. "In prayer there
is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness
from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your
part, you cut yourself off from God's part." (Matthew 6:14, 15
MSG)

FORGIVENESS reminds me of my own pardon and redemption. "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32 NASB)

FORGIVENESS unclutters the channel for God's blessing. “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate." "Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it." (Luke 6:35, 36; I Peter 3:9 NLT)

FORGIVENESS demonstrates trust in God's process of justice. "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." "Romans 12:19, 20 NIV)

FORGIVENESS makes reconciliation a possibility. "If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love." (Matthew 18:15-17 MSG)

FORGIVENESS enables those around me to benefit from my wholesome attitude. "Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” (Hebrews 12:14, 15 NLT)

FORGIVENESS leaves my mind free for productive thinking. "Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts." (Colossians 3:12-16 NLT)

The following prayer has long been attributed to the 13th century saint, Francis of Assisi, although in its present form it can be traced back only to 1912, when it appeared anonymously in a French publication.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Marjorie

Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture marked NASB is from the New American Standard Bible, used by permission of The Lockman Foundation, www.lockman.org Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Holiday Expectations

Did Christmas meet your expectations? I'm not asking if you got the new electronic thingamajig you wanted or the book you've been eager to read. The days right after Christmas may be something of a letdown. You've had too much to eat, you're too tired to exchange the robe that doesn't fit, and the company has gone home—or maybe they haven't and that's part of the problem!

Even though we are serious about celebrating the true reason for the season, we sometimes fantasize how an anticipated occasion is going to play out. We imagine the holiday that songs and stories are made of, and reality does not always measure up—not necessarily that anything bad happened. There were no arguments among the adults, no tearful fusses by the children, no burned or underdone entrees. Instead of glorying in how well everything went, we are vaguely uncomfortable.

It's helpful if we recognize that this is pretty normal, not just in regard to holidays, but also to vacations, a change in jobs, a different car, even a new baby! Our dreams are totally controllable and we can make things happen exactly as we wish, whereas real life is tricky. Anticipation is often greater than realization.

Don't let the day-after blahs drain away the goodness of the holidays. In retrospect, probably a fine time was had by all!

Marjorie

Has God Forgotten?

In the 6th century B.C., in three different deportations, the Jewish people were taken captive and exiled in a foreign land. What about God's promise that a king from David's line would sit on the throne forever? To those people, it surely must have looked sometimes like God had gone back on His word. The dire predictions of the prophets who spoke for God during that time must have alarmed the faithful few among the many idol worshippers. "Where is God? Is His promise true or not? Has He forgotten us?"

What they could not see, nor could the prophets who spoke of redemption understand, was that the Messiah King would come, hundreds of years later. It was He Who would sit on the throne eternally. He would be the fulfillment of all the promises, He would speak to all the disappointment, He would prove that God had not forgotten.

"Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion?" (Psalm 77:7-9) It is not unusual for even the most committed Christian to go through a dark time when, like the captive Israelites or the dispirited psalm-singer, he/she might wonder, "Has God forgotten?" The mind knows, of course, that He has not, but the heart is still anxious. Charles H. Spurgeon, the great preacher from more than a century ago, spoke at length on these questions, and I have extracted some of his statements. (The entire sermon can be found at http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols31-33/chs1843.pdf)

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Then He has forgotten an old, long, ancient,
yes—eternal habit of His heart! Have you not heard that His mercy endures forever? Since His creation has He not, in Providence, always been gracious? Is not His rule to open His hands and supply the need of every living thing? Did He not give His Son to redeem mankind? Has He not sent His Spirit to turn men from darkness to light? After having been gracious all these myriads of ages, after having manifested His love and His grace at such a costly rate, has He forgotten it?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Why then, He must have forgotten His purpose! Have you not heard that before the earth was, He purposed to redeem unto Himself a people who should be His own chosen, His children, His peculiar treasure, a people near unto Him? Before He made the heavens and the earth, had He not planned in His own mind that He would manifest the fullness of His Grace toward His people in Christ Jesus? And do you think that He has turned from His eternal purpose, torn up His Divine decrees, burned the Book of Life and changed the whole course of His operations among the sons of men?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Why then, He must have forgotten His own Covenant. Is it not called a Covenant of Grace? Is not grace the spirit and tenor of it? [The Lord declared, "If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that one does not follow the other, only then will my covenant with my servant David be broken."] The Lord has not forgotten His Covenant with day and night; neither will He cast off His believing people!

More than that, when you say, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" do you not forget that in such a case He must have forgotten His own Glory, for the main of His Glory lies in His grace. Does a man forget his honor? Does a man turn aside from his own name and fame? He may do so in a moment of madness, but the thrice holy God has not forgotten the Glory of His name, nor forgotten to be gracious!

If God has forgotten to be gracious, then He must have forgotten His own Son! He must have forgotten Calvary and the expiatory Sacrifice offered there! He must have forgotten Him that is always with Him at His right hand, making intercession for transgressors! Can you conceive of that? Yet it must be that He has forgotten His own Son if He has forgotten to be gracious!

Once more, if this were the case, the Lord must have forgotten His own Self, for Grace is of the essence of His Nature, since God is Love. We forget ourselves and disgrace ourselves, but God cannot do so. That the great Lord who has taken us to be His peculiar heritage and His jewels should cease to value us and forget to be gracious to us is impossibility!

I think I hear someone say, "I do not think that God has forgotten to be gracious except to me.” Does God make any exceptions? The Good Shepherd does not preserve some of His sheep, but all of them! And it is not concerning the strong ones of His flock that He says, "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish"—He has said it of all the sheep, yes, and of the smallest lamb of all the flock, of the most scabbed and wounded, of all that He has purchased with His blood! The Lord has not forgotten Himself in any one instance—but He is faithful to all believers.

You may be alone or broke or broken-hearted. You may be stuck in a situation that seems hopeless or caught up in a problem that has, as far as you can tell, no solution . You may be weary or angry or afraid. You may be many things, but you are not forgotten. One day, just as He did with coming of Jesus to Israel, He will fulfill His promises, He will speak to your disappointment, He will prove that He has not forgotten.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? No.

Marjorie

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

No Room

Most of us are familiar with the circumstances of Jesus' birth. Mary swaddled her newborn son and laid Him in a feed trough, because there was no room for them in the inn. "No room for you." I feel sure that you or someone around you knows what it is like to hear those words or feel them in your heart.

Perhaps you were an unexpected or even unwanted baby, and you became aware, even as a tiny child, that there was "no room for me here." Or perhaps there were insufficient resources to care for the family adequately, and you felt the anxiety of your elders in the only way you could understand, that is, "There's no room for me here."

Perhaps you were not as pretty or as strong or as smart or as easy-going or whatever—as your siblings or your cousins or your classmates. You were seldom chosen first, and almost always last. You began to think, "I'm not good enough. There's no room for me here."

As a child or as an adult, you may have been abused—physically, emotionally, or sexually—by those who were supposed to care for your well-being. That was certainly enough to convince you, "There's no room for me here."

You may have had some disability that prevented you from participating in life as you would have liked—or the attitude of others kept you from overcoming those disadvantages and participating fully in spite of them. "I'm different. There's no room for me here."

Perhaps you have suffered economically for any of a number of reasons. You don't have the clothes or the car or the house or the education that others around you enjoy and you have begun to think, "I don't fit in. There's no room for me here."

Your relationships may have been difficult, resulting in rejection and brokenness and loss. "There's no room for me here. Face it, there's probably no room for me anywhere."

Let me assure you, Jesus knows about "no room." Although He could not have been aware of the over-crowded inn, throughout His lifetime there were always those who pushed Him aside. "There's no room for you here."

· He came to His own, and they did not receive Him. (see John 1:11)
· He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. (see Isaiah 53:3)
· He wept, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings to protect them--but you wouldn’t let me." (see Luke 13:34)
· Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From then on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them. (see Matthew 26:14-16)
· When the rooster crowed [during Jesus' trial], Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken to him, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me." And Peter went out and wept bitterly. (see Matthew 26:75)

Jesus knows the feeling of not belonging, of being left out, of knowing that there's no room. You can entrust your heart to Him, for "whoever comes to me I will never drive away." (John 6:37 NIV) Because He came as our Savior-Mediator-Friend, there is now room.

Yes, there is room for you.

Marjorie

My Dearest Friends

"Dearest . . ."

In the middle of the night recently, I awakened to that clear word in my mind. I am not a mystic, given to dreams and visions, but it did occur to me that maybe that thought was from God. It seemed like something He would do—a whispered word to assure me of His comforting presence.

I began to think about that word, and how we use it. We evaluate persons or things and declare that this one or that is more precious than others. To us, "dearest" is all about making comparisons. But God's love is unlike ours, which can change and fail. To Him, "dearest" does not mean "I love you more than I love others" but rather, "I could not possibly love you more!" Jesus said to His followers, "People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things [daily needs], but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. (Luke 12:29)

Sometimes circumstances in our lives have a way of making us feel unlovely and unloved. Past experiences, even in childhood, may have caused these uncertainties. Relationships that meant rejection—either real or imagined—create or support the belief that we are unworthy of being "dearest" to anyone. Unfortunately, sometimes even religious instruction carries the message that we are worthless. Undeserving of grace, yes, but not worthless. Just because Job, and David too, in his extreme circumstances felt like a worm, that does not mean that I am, in fact, a worm and that God considers His human creation as such!

We are His precious possession, His dearest!

Marjorie

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Christmas Won't Be the Same

Some of my readers will have experienced loss this past year, and they may be saying, "Christmas will not be the same this year." Among my friends and even in my own family, we know that "Christmas won't be the same." We talk about and sing about "home for Christmas," but changes can come that mean home is not what it once was. A parent is gone now, a spouse, or sibling, or child. For many people in this tough economic climate, even the home itself has been lost.

Remembering the "before" is inevitable. It may help if we recognize ahead of time that certain words or rituals will trigger old feelings—sorrow, loss, regret, bittersweet commemoration. It's possible for anger and disappointment to be there as well. Some of these are emotions are to be expected; some may sneak up on us. Tears may come. There is no need to hide them. (You have my permission to let them flow.)

Sometimes a new tradition helps us focus on what we have now instead of what is missing. Don't be afraid to make changes in "what we've always done." On the other hand, there's no need to discard all the established traditions of the Christmas past simply because some of the present circumstances are different; a lot of things are still the same.

For a few women, a look at reality can be helpful. The first Christmas of my single-momhood, I lamented silently, "Look at me! I'm all alone and life is hard. How can I have a happy Christmas?" I was pulled up short by the thought, "And just how many happy Christmases did you have before you were alone?"

In our uncertain world and our changing lives, there is one constant. "Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me!" (Henry F. Lyte, 1847) Everything's different now—and nothing has changed.

Marjorie

Follow the Gleam

Several days ago, a few chance words brought to my mind an old song that I learned in my teen years. It has inspirational words and eminently singable harmonies. We sang it quite earnestly in a high school activity period where girls could join a Y-Teen club affiliated with the YWCA. So, as such things go, I have been humming it over and over—and over and over again!—since then.

The first verse of "Follow the Gleam" speaks of knights and visions and searching for the Holy Grail. (No vampires and paranormal romance for us!) But I especially like the second verse:

And we who would serve the King,
And loyally Him obey,
In the consecrate silence know,
That the challenge still holds today.
Follow, follow, follow the gleam,
Standards of worth, o'er all the earth,
Follow, follow, follow the gleam,
Of the light that shall bring the dawn
      ~Helen Hill Miller, 1920

Not every light that I've encountered along my life's road has been clear and unmistakable. Some lights have been dim, often barely discernible, but because their small rays were so persistent, I could not ignore them. It took me a long time to find the right, satisfying career—I had to follow a gleam. I've made some sad mistakes while searching for the meaning of real love and genuine selfhood—but I've followed the gleam. I spent many years trying to make sense of my spiritual heritage—I am still following the gleam.

Too often, we mistakenly suppose that we will at some point late in life have the answers to "life's persistent questions." Not so. Most likely, answers to the most crucial questions will come at first as a faint understanding, a glimmer of light. Don't be discouraged. Follow it. "The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day." (Proverbs 4:18)

Marjorie

Scripture quotation from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.