Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 51

Forgiveness and Broken Friendships

Forgiveness is straightforward, but the issues related to forgiveness certainly have layers. We are to forgive 70 x 7 times, but that does not mean the relationship will look the same at forgiveness #1 as it does at forgiveness # 499. Sin is the destroyer of relationships. And forgiveness can be extended, yes, but there will still be consequences. Sometimes the consequences include divorce, broken friendships, or just a distance where there was once closeness. The Bible says that we are to be at peace with all men, as far as is possible with us. Sometimes, no matter what we may try to do, or what we actually do in forgiveness, it is simply impossible.

For example, if you keep getting shellacked, then you should move out of range. This is just common sense. It is our God-given sense of self-preservation. If someone is repeatedly unkind and cruel, then you have to consider your options, and different relationships have different thresholds for moving on. If your roommate at college is a continual pain, then fulfill your obligations for the year and move on. If it's a neighbor or a boss who is continually sinning against you, you can always move across town or look for another job. Why not?

But if it's a family member, there is a different threshold for what is intolerable. Your family is your family. If  your parents are the offenders, and you are still living at home, you need to hunker down and pray for grace to make it to adulthood. Then you can move out and on. Meanwhile, you should do all you can to make it better. The same goes with a sibling. Extend forgiveness, do your best to improve the relationship, but if you continue to be persecuted or ignored, you can get out of range once you are grown. This is not being fatalistic, but simply acknowledging that relationships can get so tangled that the sometimes the only way out is to cut the rope.

If it is your husband who is perpetually sinning against you, then you need to get help. This can be the most difficult to endure and has the most severe consequences.  But the thing that I find (over and over) is that women with unkind husbands rarely have the courage to get help. They want sympathy, but not a real solution.

But back to friends. If a friend has betrayed you, Jesus knows how you feel. He fed Peter breakfast on the beach before Peter even asked for forgiveness. But He also addressed the sin; He didn't ignore it. He gave Peter three opportunities to state his love, paralleling his three failures. Peter put it right. Judas also betrayed the Lord, but he did not put things right.

Sometimes your friends will wrong you (or your kids' friends will wrong them), and this will result in a chilly distance. If you are the wronged party, you are obligated to extend forgiveness, but you are not obligated to continue to be best friends. If someone steals from you while fixing your sink, you may forgive him, but you may decide to call someone else next time the drain is plugged.

Forgiveness is one thing; friendship and trust are other things. If your friend has broken your trust, forgive him, and don't entrust that friend in the future. This is wisdom. But beware of bitterness. Don't mistake one for the other.

Bekah's Studio

On another front, Bekah's studio has been featured in Studios magazine this month. After the tree hit her house, this room was remodeled and became a beautiful space for her Amoretti projects and all those other things she does. You can go over to her blog and read about it first hand. And you'll enjoy her funny comments about wishing it always looked as good as it does in those pictures.  Meanwhile, I'm going to hot-foot it over to the magazine rack and get myself a copy.

Enter The Dragon's Tooth

My son has a new book coming out, The Dragon's Tooth, the first in a five-book series from Random House called The Ashtown Burials. His target age-group is 10-14, and I know he's hitting his target because Knox (age13) and Rory (age 9) gobbled it up  back when Nate was writing it. Now they are anxiously waiting for each new chapter of the second book, one of the perks that comes with being a nephew and a son of the writer. It is also one of the perks of being the mother of the author.  I loved it as much as the kids, which means it's also hitting its target audience of fifty-something.

A few weeks ago Nate shot a book trailer for The Dragon's Tooth which I am linking you to here. I had to laugh at my son. Not only did he write the book and the screenplay for the trailer, he built the motel sign in his front yard (which Bekah designed) and gathered up the actors (starring Joel Courtney of Super 8) and the props, including my dad's old black Cadillac, and directed the filming. All this to say, he's a hands-on guy, which makes his writing all the more interesting and fun. Be braced for weird insects and lots of action!

Life is just a cherry storm

Whoever it was who so quaintly said "life is just a bowl of cherries"  was either tremendously naive, or a master of understatement. Because if you spend time around a cherry tree that knows its business, you know better than to refer to its fruit in any kind of singular. Obedient trees yield too much fruit for anyone to deal with.

I love the picture of blessing that fruit trees are. All this bounty – turning dark, falling, while we frantically try to catch it and turn it into something. Pounds and pounds of luscious fruit too high for us to hope to reach. Even on ladders that are on top of picnic tables while someone in the tree pushes a branch down.

This tree of ours has already made at least ten children feel faint with cherries on multiple occasions. It has fed neighbors, friends, and children who know better than to eat even one more cherry but just can't stop. It is a little microcosm, a little picture in juice of what God does for us every day. We can get in this tree of blessing and pick and pick and pick and eat and eat and eat and never exhaust the supply. Sometimes the blessings and the fruit and the wildness of it all can make us think that cherries aren't what we wanted after all. They are gross to step on barefoot. They need to be picked, and jammed, and ice creamed, and cobblered.

God's blessings don't come to us in tidy baskets. They don't fall to the ground pitted and frozen. They splatter juice on our patio tables, and stain faces and fingers. God's blessings come in their own season, and sometimes they come so fast and so full that they make you feel a little woozy for a minute. But only for a minute, and then you'll be out picking some more.

Lord, anything.

Thought you would enjoy my husband's exhortation over on his blog this morning.

70 x 7

The disciples had questions about forgiveness, just like we do. Sure, we can understand the need to forgive someone once, especially if they repent and seek our forgiveness. But what about the person (say, a family member) who just keeps on doing the same thing over and over and then over and over again? And what if they know they're sinning, but they still do it? What about them? Where do we draw the line and say, "That's it! I'm done forgiving you! I'm just going to get bitter now."

It's worth noting that it is usually those closest to us (i.e. family members) who can bother us the most. And they are the very people with whom we should have the sweetest fellowship. There are two sins involved in this (at least). One is the sin of the offender; and the other is the sin of the one who takes offense. Taking offense and keeping it is like taking ugly pills. Ever seen the face of a long embittered woman?

This whole forgiveness thing must have seemed a little outlandish to  Peter. He wanted to know just how many times he had to forgive. So Jesus made a point of giving him a number.  Four hundred ninety times. That's 490.

Here it is in Matthew 18: 21-22:

"Then Peter came to Him and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?'

Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'"

I don't know about you, but I don't want to keep track of that. The point is obviously clear:  we are to have no debt ceiling when it comes to forgiveness. We are to just keep on forgiving, no matter how many times our brother sins against us. You would think that after a while, we might not let it bother us at all any more. Think how comfortable our Christian lives would be then? But that's not natural for us. Our flesh is uncooperative.

When we forgive, not only are we obeying God, we are doing ourselves a favor. When we forgive, we are blessed; when we refuse to forgive, we cannot expect a blessing. Extending forgiveness frees us. It makes our lives sweeter. Let's say this guy, whoever he is, is shooting for sinning against you 491 times. If you refuse forgiveness, he won't get any better, and you will only feel worse. So, if you see my point, it's better to forgive, and then be braced for the next round. I guess God wants us to get really good at this forgiveness thing because if we do, we'll be more like Him. I think forgiveness is a little bit like hospitality: you throw the doors open and welcome the poor sinner back in. Lack of forgiveness shuts the door and says don't come near.

I don't mean that we should be totally calloused and oblivious when people sin against us. We're not blocks of wood. I would prefer to call it a light-heartedness. Thomas Watson said it's better to be the one sinned against than to be the one sinning. A clear conscience is a wonderful thing! Thank God for it.  Then use the other guy's sin as a sermon to you. Ask God to give you a sharper sense of when you are sinning against someone yourself. And then be quick to seek forgiveness.

Forgiveness

We all know we are supposed to forgive one another. That is not a new, shocking idea that I cooked up this morning while having my coffee. It is fundamental to the Christian life. But that doesn't mean that it's easy.

Let's say someone has wronged you, and it's not your imagination; it's an objective sin. It is easy to put that grievance in a compartment somewhere in your heart and keep it there. For years and years. After all, it was a real sin and it's easy to feel totally justified in being indignant. It could be one of your family members, or someone at work or at church; it could be the neighbor who cussed you out for parking funny, or it could be one of your own children who didn't sin at all, but just woke up too early this morning. We can gather up grudges from all kinds of places, for real or imagined sins.

But Jesus wants us to think about this a different way. Upside down in fact. Do we want God to put our wrongs in a compartment where He can review them regularly and hold a grievance against us? Aaaackk. No! We want Him to put them as far away as the East is from the West. We want Him to bleach the crimson stain out. What does He want us to do? He wants us to imitate Him so that He can imitate us.

Jesus taught His disciples (and aren't we His disciples?) to pray very specifically. Whenever we ask God to forgive us for our sins (which we ought to do regularly), we are to ask Him to model His forgiveness after ours. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

So, we could easily say in our prayers something like this: Lord, please forgive me for my sin of  (fill in the blank) the same way I have forgiven so-in-so. To tell you the truth, I don't want God to model His forgiveness after mine. Mine is pretty weak and lame, and I am fully capable of carrying a grudge. But we say the Lord's Prayer every week at church, and it is a potent reminder that I need to get full grace from God to forgive others so that I can ask Him to forgive me.

Here's a suggestion. Who is it in your life who requires the most forgiveness from you? Then ask God to forgive you today the same way you have forgiven old so-in-so. And if you just can't do it,  ask God to give you the resources to extend forgiveness. Clean out that cupboard of grievances and ask God to give it a thorough shine.

Then we can all pray the Lord's prayer without being hypocrites. And it's amazing what a heavy weight those old grievances are. There's no need for us to continue to drag them around like a ball and chain. Christians, of all people, are the most free. We have the means, by God's grace, to live like we are.

Heart-tenderizing Words

One day when I was feeling particularly like homemaking and child-rearing were exercises in futility, I called my mother-in-law to get a little pep talk. She had married Jim when she was 33 and he was 26, and her first of four children (my husband) was born when she was 34. Before her marriage, she had spent several years on the mission field, and she was a first-rate Bible teacher. So I called her up and told her how I felt that morning: like each day I grabbed my shovel to start moving the pile and by evening it was still there, maybe even higher and bigger.

So I was expecting a nice little word that would cheer me up. I was expecting a little sympathy. But here's what I got instead. She told me about a missionary who was imprisoned for his faith and hung upside down in a cave. His wife had to bring him food and feed him in that condition. She brought him his books so he could continue to study while he was hanging there. Hmmm. I certainly did not have it that bad, not even on the worst laundry days. You can imagine, that was not what I was expecting to hear. I remember reacting a little bit on the inside. "Oh come on! That's not relevant to my situation! See if I call you next time I need a little cheering up!"

She also reminded me that I had three in my congregation, three in my little Bible school at home. Now that was a new image for me. I wasn't just running in circles. I was teaching by word and by example, every day, all day. That was both convicting and exciting for me to think about.

The unspoken message (which out of tenderness, she never would have said) was that I was having a little pity party, and I needed to get back to work with more of a vision of my calling, a renewed sense of the great potency of my calling. And a cheerful attitude. A little more gratitude. After all, my husband was standing on his own two feet. Life was not nearly as hard as I thought it was. It could be much, much harder. I needed to adjust my attitude, not my circumstances.

That was thirty years ago. If she had just patted me on the head, I doubt that I would even remember that conversation today. But I think of it often still. As her husband has said, and we have quoted often before, hard teaching makes soft hearts. Soft teaching makes hard hearts. If she had simply said, "Poor you! What a rotten life you have! You don't need to do that. Why don't you farm those little monsters out?" that would be soft teaching. "Take the first escape hatch! Don't wear yourself out!" Hard teaching is about laying your life down and taking up your cross and following Jesus. Those hard words are heart-tenderizing words.

We often get this wrong. We want soft words, easy words, and not words that step on our toes or mess up our hair. Those words turn us into hard-hearted women. If you don't believe me, look at the abortion industry. It gives women soft, easy words and creates monsters of them. Soft words can be soul-destroying.

But the hard words are the ones that get us to our knees and give us tender hearts. They remind us that God has promised us far more than we ever believe. Samuel Rutherford said that he hoped to over-hope and over-believe all his troubles. Faith gives us the will to back up and try again, full speed, to clear the hurdle. One more time.

The Long View

I know that it's tough to see the outcome when you are in the midst of rearing up a handful (or two!) of kids. But when a farmer is planting his fields, he's got his eye on the harvest. Moms need to be a little bit like farmers. You are sowing and planting a field, and when the kids are little, this is the season that takes a lot of heavy investment of time, attention, and energy. But remember to take the long view. Harvest time is coming, and all this work of planting and weeding and watering will yield a crop.

Since I am a grandmother, that's easy for me to say. I see the crop. It's in the barn now! Now my own children are busy in their own fields,  and now I'm the one praying for them as they are bringing up their children. Oh, what a serious business it is to raise a family.

Now I can see with my eyes what I had to believe by faith years ago. I want to encourage you many moms out there to look with faith at your children. Trust God to bring a harvest. Your labor is not in vain. He sees it all. All those little things you do for your kids: listening to them and looking them in the eye, rubbing their backs and fixing that ponytail, washing their clothes and changing their diapers, feeding them and teaching them, playing with them and correcting them….all these things are going into an account that you can't see. But God does!

Take the long view. You've got to be patient because it doesn't happen overnight. Keep your eye on the outcome and trust God to use all your labors to bring about a harvest far greater than you expected. Far greater than any of us deserves.

Dealing With Success

Christians are sometimes suspicious of success. We are far better at failure. We can be "spiritual" about our own failures, but we can feel guilty when God blesses us with success.  We can even process it pretty well when someone works hard and nearly succeeds. But when a fellow Christian really succeeds, many Christians start to get a worried expression. Some feel the need to express the warning,  "Be sure this doesn't go to your head." Others may assume immediately that the person must have already compromised the faith simply because of the success.

Some Puritans had the view that if you were not being afflicted, God must not love you. Some even prayed for affliction because they felt left out. I know that's hard to believe! But it seems so spiritual.  So sometimes our natural instinct is to assume success and blessing must be the result of some compromise.

But God takes a different view. As my husband pointed out in a recent sermon (when we were in Virginia) some Christians want to stay on the Cross. They understand sin and that they are the chief of sinners, but they can't get past that. They wallow in their own sinfulness and failure, and they stay there.

But Jesus saw the exaltation ahead of Him while He endured the Cross. We must realize that we are not just crucified with Him, and buried with Him, but we are also raised with Him and share in His exaltation at the right hand of the Father, where we are seated with Him. He is no longer on the Cross, and neither are we. He has triumphed over the grave, and we are in Him.

Other Christians have a different tendency. They want to skip the Cross all together and go straight to the crown. (Doug calls this "blab it and grab it.") These believers can look at sickness or failure as the result of sin. So on one hand, we have Christians who are suspicious of success, and on the other hand, Christians who are suspicious of failure. But we must follow Jesus to the Cross before we can follow Him to heaven. Both are necessary.

Christians are often afraid of succeeding. They are not afraid to die, but they are afraid they might succeed and ruin their testimony (!). We can see this in evangelism, where we don't expect many conversions. We can see this in our callings, where we don't expect to really prosper, but just get by. And we can see this in our spiritual lives, when we don't expect to really grow in grace and become strong in the Lord. We don't expect God to bless us. The prodigal son returned home, hoping for a place among the servants. He was not expecting a ring, a robe, and a party with a band!

God loves His people. He wants to bless us. When some are granted surprising success, we should rejoice with them. We don't need to feel that it is less spiritual to succeed than to fail. That's not true. Success has its own set of temptations, just like everything else. We don't need to get annoyed like the elder brother in the prodigal son's story. Nor do we need to fear success.

Humility can receive success and rejoice in the deliverance and exaltation, in whatever form it takes. Paul learned to be content in plenty and in want, not just in want. He could do all things through Christ who strengthened Him. So we need grace for our afflictions and failures, and grace for our blessings and successes. But in all, we must remember we have the victory in Christ, who endured the Cross and now reigns at God's right hand.