I don't know how..
Today I sat in church absolutely exhausted, but even before Nate began to speak I knew that he was going to speak on something big. The church was absolutely packed, and that's usually a decent hint. He preached on 1 Peter 3:8-18 which is about not repaying evil with evil, but loving your enemies. That is in general not a good sign for me. So I pulled out a pen and right now I think I just need to journal my thoughts out and really think about my life and where it's headed.
I guess my biggest concern is putting this idea into practice, and just how do we do that? This isn't easy just to think about praying for the people who hurt us and not praying like "God please give them the justice they deserve" but praying in a way that is like "God please be working in their lives so that one day I can be in heaven with you and with them" ... which is really hard for me, I don't know about anyone else.
Then Nate went on to talk about this whole thing not being an issue of willpower and the ability to pray for people in this way, but a faith issue. The core issue, the thing I am struggling with the most as well, is --Do we believe that the blessings God promises us are better than the justice we are seeking? The blessings don't seem real or better because we can't see them on a regular basis, and therefore go based on our own feelings and means instead of trusting God. If you do good who will hate you? But even if they do, how great will be your blessing? But since we can't see it everyday, it is difficult to believe it. Is Christ a greater king than the powers that threaten us? I know what the answer is, but why is it so hard to believe it? Is trusting God worth the suffering you are facing right now?
Well thank you God for using Nate Hall to really hit EVERYTHING I am having issues with right now!!
I am having quite the hard time with this and I'm not sure what any of this means for my life.. did I push my mother out of my life because forgiving her is too painful? Remembering all that's happened means that I've moved on and that I have to open up my heart again for her to hurt me? Is it easier for me to push her out and make her my enemy than to face the fact that this is under God's control?
I don't know how to trust God when the people in my life that are supposed to love me continuously, unconditionally don't. So why would God, I don't deserve it and still He loves me anyways? That doesn't make sense to me, and I'm not sure why.
One other thing Nate said that is really making me evaluate myself is: "Forgiveness falters when I exclude my enemy from humanity and exclude myself from the community of sinners"
Have I forgotten that I am as much a sinner as my enemies? Have I forgotten that my enemy is still equal to me because we are in fact all sinners?
I guess that's it for now...
I guess my biggest concern is putting this idea into practice, and just how do we do that? This isn't easy just to think about praying for the people who hurt us and not praying like "God please give them the justice they deserve" but praying in a way that is like "God please be working in their lives so that one day I can be in heaven with you and with them" ... which is really hard for me, I don't know about anyone else.
Then Nate went on to talk about this whole thing not being an issue of willpower and the ability to pray for people in this way, but a faith issue. The core issue, the thing I am struggling with the most as well, is --Do we believe that the blessings God promises us are better than the justice we are seeking? The blessings don't seem real or better because we can't see them on a regular basis, and therefore go based on our own feelings and means instead of trusting God. If you do good who will hate you? But even if they do, how great will be your blessing? But since we can't see it everyday, it is difficult to believe it. Is Christ a greater king than the powers that threaten us? I know what the answer is, but why is it so hard to believe it? Is trusting God worth the suffering you are facing right now?
Well thank you God for using Nate Hall to really hit EVERYTHING I am having issues with right now!!
I am having quite the hard time with this and I'm not sure what any of this means for my life.. did I push my mother out of my life because forgiving her is too painful? Remembering all that's happened means that I've moved on and that I have to open up my heart again for her to hurt me? Is it easier for me to push her out and make her my enemy than to face the fact that this is under God's control?
I don't know how to trust God when the people in my life that are supposed to love me continuously, unconditionally don't. So why would God, I don't deserve it and still He loves me anyways? That doesn't make sense to me, and I'm not sure why.
One other thing Nate said that is really making me evaluate myself is: "Forgiveness falters when I exclude my enemy from humanity and exclude myself from the community of sinners"
Have I forgotten that I am as much a sinner as my enemies? Have I forgotten that my enemy is still equal to me because we are in fact all sinners?
I guess that's it for now...