Christians are good at covering up hurts, thinking we are more spiritual if we ignore an offense and get over it quickly. But that is not a recipe for good health of body or soul. We must remember that forgiving someone is one thing, but forgetting takes time. We can forgive immediately, but only God can forget right away. Somehow, we have gotten the notion that we haven’t really forgiven unless we quickly forget as well. But that is not so, for they are two different things. We all may still have some negative unforgiving feelings for a while after we have forgiven a person. Dr. Martin Padovani reminds us that forgiveness is a decision, a choice and an act of our will and intellect. It can still be genuine even when we don’t have warm, positive feelings, as we are saying with our will, “I forgive you.” But the feelings of forgiveness may take some time, for we don’t have control over our feelings but we do have control on how we handle them.

Let’s say someone has hurt us and we have anything but warm feelings towards him. We feel the pain and there are some resentful feelings still in our mind, but we don’t act on them. We don’t have to be hard on ourselves and feel guilty, but give ourselves time to get over it and not overreact. We are to be gentle with ourselves and trust that in time our heart will heal, and we may have good feelings towards the person in the future. In the meantime, we treat him respectfully and take time to reason and reflect. Suppressing our anger only makes things worse.

We also have to struggle and be set free from anything that would block us from enjoying a life of freedom in the Lord. Maybe we are held captive by anxiety, worry, fear, guilt, depression etc. and we are not experiencing the wonderful life God has for us. We don’t need to stay in bondage but we can pray for the Lord to set us free. What follows is the need to be ready to obey whatever part is ours to do. The Holy Spirit desires that we follow His leading and He will give us courage and strength to do what is necessary for change.

Challenge for today: Any area you are not yet free, give to the Lord in trust and then do whatever part He has for you to do.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

“Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you…—Romans 15:7 (RSV)

It was a cloudy, quiet July Fourth for us, that year of 1988. My husband worked. There were no parades. We’d decided not to spend the extra money on fireworks. You can barely see them, anyway, in Alaska’s summer twilight. We didn’t even have a picnic. Yet it’s the Fourth of July that I remember and treasure the most.

The two-story log home where we were living was not our own. We were house-sitting for the summer for our friends Lou and Elsa, who were visiting their native Czechoslovakia for the first time in twenty years. As a young married couple, they had fled the streets of Prague in terror when Soviet tanks swept through the city in 1968. For days before, Elsa had hidden beneath the bed in their cramped apartment with her two little girls. When they left, they could say good-bye to no one. They simply disappeared.

Lou and Elsa found a welcome in the United Sates, eventually making their way to Alaska. They learned English and worked hard. Lou, a master craftsman, fitted each log in their home with mortar and hope. Elsa tended a fruitful vegetable garden and produced wonderful aromas from kettles simmering in her tidy kitchen.

I was alone in Lou and Elsa’s living room in the afternoon on that Fourth of July, when I suddenly burst into tears. This is it, I thought. This is the real Fourth of July. They came to America to find “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and here I am, standing in the middle of their dream. I had a glimpse of how precious this beautiful, bountiful country of ours really is. And so I waved the only flag I had … my tears, genuine and proud.

Our mouths are often a source of sin, for we may murmur or just babble on and on. There should be no place for coarse jokes or stories that are vulgar and send mixed messages. We need to monitor what we say, noticing if our attitude is wrong and if our words deny Jesus is Lord in our lives. We may, at times, complain continually to others about our difficult situation rather than quieting ourselves and committing it to the Lord.

We might say that silence is humility and our self-discipline is required to keep our mouth shut when we would like to say a lot, especially in a tense situation. Often it is better to pray and not to verbally say anything unless the Lord directs our hearts and gives us His words for the situation. Many words can actually cloud the situation if it is just uncontrolled opinions. Let us know when to be silent, that we can hear what others are saying and learn, always weighing our words before speaking.

It’s so important to be open to the Lord and know we can’t save ourselves. We need Him! When life is going smoothly and we feel self-sufficient, we may find it harder to realize our need for Him. Some might even call it a vacation from God when we get involved in other activities and little attention is given Him. But when things are difficult, it usually becomes a time we turn to the Lord and acknowledge that we need His help. We need help from outside ourselves, and freedom comes from dependence on the Lord. He is the Giver and we are the receiver. We truly are to be like children who know we need our Father.

As we deal with the hidden things of pride, our heart will become less divided and we will feel lighter for our self-will gives way more to His will. The Lord knows even our thoughts, as David told his son Solomon in I Chron. 28, “know the God of our father and serve Him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you.”

We might be able to fool others with a spiritual façade, but the Lord sees our hearts and nothing escapes His notice. Let us be humble and honest and when pride pokes its head up, call it for what it is and be humble.

The big question then is whom do we obey? We are free when we obey the Lord. If we look back on our lives, it becomes quite evident whom we serve by the decisions we have made. But it is good when we can admit and deal with the many ways we are enslaved by our own will and humbly come to the Lord for forgiveness. Then we can follow the Lord and let Him control our life, and His love helps us displace our selfishness. Often it boils down to saying “no” to ourselves and “yes” to Him.

Perhaps we can all think of people who always seem to get their way. Are they happy and liked by others, and are they growing? Probably not. If they only live to please themselves and their own pleasure, they are not concerned about others. Their world is a very small.

As we seek daily to do God’s will there are often times He uses others in our lives to guide us in His will. If we are humble and open to the Lord, we will choose His way over ours and be open to hear from those He sends. We all have toxins within us that need to be neutralized and God uses others to help us see what needs to go. Let us be open to God and do His will from a heart of faith and obedience.