Sprinkle Forgiveness Around like Confetti

Have you seen it?  It's a very popular meme:

I was sitting in church on Sunday listening to the sermon.  I was, to be honest a little distracted for whatever reason.  My mind was swirling with words.  God was speaking to me both through the sermon and in addition to the sermon.  The sermon was entitled, "Do you Really See Me?".  Father Bruce was talking about how God sees us where we are.  He sees us for we are.  He sees us for who we are to become.  He does not think with limiting thoughts like we do, but sees us through the lens of who we can become.

Then our Pastor asked a question: "Does the Christ in you see and experience the Christ in me?"

Whoa.

How many times do I respond in pain or anger, hurting someone with my actions or words?  Sure, they hurt me, and deeply, but the greater sin here is that I let my pride say it was ok to respond shortly, or bluntly because I was speaking the truth.  No matter what they have done to hurt me, intentionally or otherwise, I should not be allowing my pain to do the talking. 

Pain fuels anger.  Pain is important, and righteous anger is one thing, but it also has a tendency to cloud our judgement, fueling pride that our actions are somehow justified because we are hurt.

Does the Christ in you see and experience the Christ in me?

The Lord spoke to me during the sermon, telling me that I need to make amends to those who I have hurt.  He said their part in it has no bearing.  I am to simply apologize......

That I need to Sprinkle Forgiveness around like Confetti.

Then, I was doing my bible study this morning on Anxiety, and I read this:

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him" 1 John 3:1

One of my issues is that I often feel misunderstood, particularly by my family who are not believers.  And I am.  And it is often hard for me not to take it personally, and have it affect my own feeling of self- worth.  If my family thinks this of me, I must be etc....  But the thing is, they WILL often misunderstand me because they do not know Christ who is in me.  It is my job to do what the Lord tells me to do (sprinkle forgiveness around like confetti) and pray for their salvation.  But it isn't my job to try to convince them of who I am.  They are not seeing with open eyes.  And not just my family, but my friends on social media and in real life.  Why do I look to them for validation, when the one I should be looking to is God.  It is God who gently prompts me to act differently and to be the person He knows is my potential.  No man on this earth knows that, and I need not look to them for direction.

So, God issued a directive to me to make amends with those I know I've hurt before Easter.  I will be putting my feet where my faith is and doing this.  I'd be lying if I were to say I'm nervous of the outcome.  But one thing I have learned without question in my life is that I am always surprised at how God works when I'm simply obedient to Him.

Love, Semalee