Stepping into the Light

I'm interrupting my brief series on Becoming an Atheist to take an advertising break for forgiveness.

There are two people, united in what must be miserable matrimony, who are in fact my enemies. I don't know that I've ever had an enemy before, a real live human being doing the bidding of Satan in a purposeful effort to hurt as deeply as possible someone I love (and me by proxy). Oh wait, there was one other many years ago who prodded me into a state of murderous fantasy just as the current offenders have come very close to achieving. That other time, though, I was not yet a Christian, and now I am.

I don't take offense easily (never have), and don't hold grudges. For one thing, holding a grudge is too much work, and hatred doesn't feel good--at least not for long. But attack someone I love and I quickly become someone who wants to destroy. I'm not proud this.

Again and again I've forgiven the people at issue here as they have committed lie after lie, and one petty act of vengeance after another. My spirit is so anointed, my life so blessed, and my prayers so direct that the hatred that pops up each time they act is spewed out of me like a spoonful of cod liver oil from the mouth of an unsuspecting child. It bothers me that hatred or fury pops up at all, but I believe that's natural and one important reason I have to stay in the practice of prayer. God doesn't expect us not to feel anger, He expects us to control it and not to act on it (Prov 19:11, Eph 4:26).

I bring up forgivenss today because there are fresh acts for me to forgive in others and fresh feelings for which I need God to forgive me in return.

This morning, I read Os Hillman's T.G.I.F. devotional referencing 2 Samuel 1:12 and David's mourning for King Saul, who had attempted for years to kill David. Mr. Hillman wrote, "For several years a person was a source of constant pain and retaliation toward me. There was nothing I could do to change it. God allowed me to go beyond the person's actions to understand what was the source of his need. When I gained that understanding, God gave me a picture of this person inside a prison cell and in bondage. This bondage made him respond to life in this way. I was able to pray for him and genuinely love him in spite of the fact that he persecuted me."

When you look at an enemy this way, who do you need to forgive today despite their bondage? Or are you the one bound?

(Photograph by Andrew Post)