Quote:
Originally Posted by Jo S
In other words, the point isn't to ignore or condemn and waver between extremes. You can be indignant toward sin, but also have your hand stretched out toward those that hurt you. That's what God did for all of us while we were still sinners and enemies of the truth by sending His Son.
It's not easy, but it's the Christian walk. If you find yourself struggling with this, it's because there's something that first needs to be addressed in your own life.
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Thanks for your response, and I don't necessarily want to focus in on the one thing you said that I disagree with, but it's been a couple days and I keep feeling to return to this point.
My guess is you meant well with the comment I underlined, but based on my own experience it just comes too close to sounding like "if you can't forgive then the problem is you" for me to let it pass.
Of course I grant that we all have our own issues and we need to ask the Lord to shine on us. But struggling with something doesn't mean I am the problem. It just means its a struggle. It means someone totally took you off guard and poured hot acid on you and you are still burning and gasping for breath a year later. Struggling with the clanging trauma and repercussions of some of the penetrating pain that some people experience doesn't mean that there is some deficiency in them at all. It just means that life is hard and we are human and it takes time to get repaired. I'm glad Jesus and Stephen could ask God to forgive the ones taking their life literally as their lives were being taken, but just because the rest of us can't do that immediately doesn't mean we need extra blame heaped on our head. If I stretch my hand out to some of the people who hurt me they would use that opportunity to finish the job and completely throw me off the cliff. Sometimes the other person's hands are Edward Scissorhands. I ain't touching that.
Pain is painful. Hurt hurts. I've prayed many times for my enemies (who I didn't want to be my enemies but that is what they wanted) to be blessed and it didn't magically make me love them or diminish the sting.
I do take the rest of your response. I certainly don't want to be judging anything through a self-righteous lens. I only want to stay in the sphere of judging rightly. Jesus told us to take the beam out of our own eye BEFORE we judge others, 1) so we wouldn't be hypocrites, and 2) so we can see clearly to judge rightly and help them deal with their own problem. He didn't say leave their speck alone. Those verses aren't a command not to judge, but how to judge. I'm interested in the judging rightly, with a humble heart to bring situations to the Lord to see if He wants me to judge or to drop it. It's a new thought for me that we are allowed to say "hey that's not right!" sometimes.
Trapped