I have tried to post SO many times. I have been so overwhelmingly emotional - and it comes and it goes. Sometimes it is personal, other times I cannot find the source of my feelings. But I have decided:
Feelings can be liars.
Our feelings are not fact. They are warped through our life's experiences, colored through the lenses of our own perception, and used against us by the enemy. They can be BASED on fact, and we are perfectly capable of some unbiased opinions, even. But so often we allow our feelings to control us, to control our actions - or even more accurate, I think - to permit us to become out of control. Feelings frequently elicit a REACTION as opposed to ACTING in love and grace and mercy.
Think about it, truthfully, for a moment. I am certainly not excluding myself. Some of my deepest hurts have come from family members. Have I forgiven them? Yes. Again and again. Because they continue to hurt or attack me? Not necessarily. As much as I want to have peaceful and wonderful times as a family, those old hurts haunt me. They cause me to build walls that 1) look like distance - either physically or emotionally, 2) cause me to guess - or even judge - their motives for almost everything, and 3) generally feel on edge whenever we spend time together.
I WANT to truly let it go. However, I cannot help but wonder - often - are these things due to my sinful nature and I should just "turn the other cheek"? That is what we are told, right? Or are things meant to safeguard me from more situations? Is this a gift from God - this distance and effort to perceive threats or harm from others? A source of protection that does come from Him?
My heart tells me to release it completely. God tells me that He will protect and care for me. That He is going to restore, redeem, and even fight for me. And yet, it is so hard to trust. It is so difficult to continue to lay open my heart for it to be stomped on by those who should be a part of my "village".
In seeking wisdom for this query, I find the story of Joseph that begins in Genesis 37. You have probably heard it before: Joseph is favored by his father and hated by his jealous brothers. It certainly does not help matters that he decides to share a dream that he has had with his brothers - where he tells them that they will essentially bow down to him. They are angry and they decide to get rid of him. They planned to kill him and hide the body, but after seeing a caravan of traders, opt instead to sell him into slavery to earn a profit.
The part of the story that is so amazing to me, though, is the middle - all of the things that happen to Joseph during the years that he is separated from his family and then, eventually, reunited. (Genesis 39-46) He became a trusted overseer of the house of Potiphar - an officer of Pharaoh. He was falsely accused of impropriety with the lady of the house, and was incarcerated. He continued to trust in God and God faithfully orchestrated his return to the "top of the food chain", as it were. Once there, his brothers came to him seeking help - they needed food due to a famine. He provides WELL for them, sends them off, and then eventually brings them to Egypt to live with him in relative wealth and high regard.
Before he had even seen his brothers, Joseph had already forgiven them.
THAT part is what amazes me. God was faithful, he gave Joseph success after success, and gave him every authority to send his brothers away with nothing. But he did not. He did what was UNEXPECTED.
Lord, help me to do what is unexpected. Help me to love despite hurtful words and actions. Help me to offer grace and mercy in abundance - because I might be the only example of Your grace and mercy that others - even those that persecute me - may see. Give me strength, Lord, to do all of this instantaneously - and to shrink my own selfishness and ego and walls back to nothing so that all that others can see is You. Thank You, Daddy God, for protecting me always. Thank You that I can never run out of love and grace and mercy, because it flows directly from You, Lord. Amen.
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