The Nature of Forgiveness and Redemption

My church ( www.epicwired.net ) is doing a message series called "At the Movies." In this series, we look at different movies and apply their message to God's message for us.

The first week featured "The Blind Side." The story is about a well-to-do family that takes a homeless youth off the streets and gives him a home. Said youth goes on to become an NFL star. This lead to a discussion on generosity and giving of yourselves to others. See 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 for some of God's words on this.

This past week featured the movie " Eclipse." Now, God really doesn't have much to say on the nature of the battle between the vampires and the werewolves and I'm sure that is as it should be. However, God does have much to say on the nature of anger, forgiveness and reconciliation. 

What has settled into my heart from this past week's lesson comes from the book of Colossians. To be more specific, Colossians 3:13, which states, "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." (TNIV) 

Obviously, God has much to say about this topic in many different parts of the bible. This passage sticks in my head for this reason, "forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone." This, to me is the most powerful part of this verse. How do you forgive someone a grievance if they do not even realize they even have a grievance? In know, this sounds strange but bear with me.

I have a friend, with whom I've shared a long-time friendship, that seems to have slipped out of my life. I've have been there for this person through thick and thin and have been one of the few supporters of this person's wildest schemes and pipe dreams. Now, of late, communication between us has ground to a screeching halt. In fact, but for a couple of brief phone calls and a bit of time at a party, we have barely had any contact at all in the past 6 months. This lack of communication has caused me some troubled and dark thoughts. Nothing nefarious, mind you, just troubled - questions about strength of relationship, etc. I bear no grievance so must question if there is a grievance bourn against me. As I haven't heard anything to that effect, I wonder if there is an unvoiced, or unaware, grievance against me on my friend's part.

That being said, and possibly confusing, I was reminded by a non-Christian friend of mine the other night that there is a big difference between being a Christian and being Christ-like. Tomorrow, as difficult as it may be, I will call my friend and give and ask for forgiveness for whatever grievance may be held. God wants no less of me.

Go in the peace of the Lord, our God, and his most holy son, Jesus Christ.

A Second Post

I know I know, I didn't know what to say now I post twice in one night ..... get over it! LOL

I was just thinking of (and chatting with) old friends and this song sums up how I feel about my friends that are far away. Cheesy, I know, but sincere for all of that.

Enjoy! I love you all!

An uncertain foray into the blogosphere

I'm not sure how to go about blogging. I'm sure I should be careful that I don't give out too much information where a crazy would be able to find me. Not really sure I am interesting enough for that, though. Maybe to someone but then they would have to be crazy, yes?

I'm a father of two boys (aged 3 and 16 mo.). Is that too much info? I love them tons and tons. It's funny, after watching my oldest get to this age and following my youngest son's progress, I've come to an interesting (sort of) conclusion - Boys are genetically wired to like boy things and girls are wired to like girl things, at least at a young age. 

Not particularly profound but, there you have it. My example of this is my youngest. For the longest time, he has been happy to go about his little life eating, drinking, crying, pooping and all the other things that babies do. He never really had a preference as to what he wants to watch or play with, just whatever was in front of him. Lately, however, he has become obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine ®. He will dig out the few engines we have and play with them, or bring them to me to start up or replace batteries, as needed. Even more remarkable, to my mind, he will go to the DVD shelf, dig through them until he finds a Thomas disc, then bring it to me with the command to "wha", which we believe means watch. 

It's fun to see him do this but it sure is a pain to clean up the discs 2 to 3 times a day - at least. My oldest went through the same disc destruction phase when he was that age. He had (and still does) the same appreciation for Thomas but he wasn't as forward with his Thomas watching demands.

I have a new niece and I am very curious to see if this genetic wiring theory proves out. My older niece had the same obsessions with girly toys, I believe but, living more than 6 hours from her, I have no first-hand proof. I think I will be vindicated, though.