Balm of Gilead

There are a lot of words and ideas that are commonly used and communicated every day, and yet if you take a moment to stop and think about them you realize that almost everyone has a different meaning tied to that word. “Love” is one of those words. It’s used all the time, but if you ever ask someone what it means to them you’ll likely find it means something different to them than it means to you (I’ve personally conducted that experiment). One similar word is “forgiveness”. We talk about it all the time, daily we encounter situations where we extend, withhold, and seek forgiveness.

I’ve really struggled knowing what forgiveness is in my lifetime. Especially in church settings, it seems a bit over simplified. It sounds as if it is a simple decision, and once that decision has been made all the fall out will magically be resolved and hurt and disappointment will all disappear.

For example, this week in my New Testament class we studied a story in Matthew chapter 18 that has to do with forgiveness. To be very brief, there was a servant that borrowed roughly millions of dollars from his master, and was unable to repay the debt when it came due. The lord forgave him the debt, seemingly without a future date for repayment, or even a percentage of repayment. That same servant who had been forgiven of millions of dollars then went to a peer, a fellow servant, and threw him into prison for the few thousand dollar debt that the second servant owed the first. When the lord heard about it, he revoked his previous forgiveness and threw the first into prison until the debt was repaid.

In this story, the lord of the servants clearly represents our Savior. Each of us carries a massive debt that is impossible for us to repay any meaningful portion. When we repent and try to follow Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of that huge debt. He has paid all our debt to Heavenly Father, and therefore is free to forgive us according to the terms that He sets.

We all also carry debts to our fellow men that we have offended, and have “loaned out debts” to those who have offended us. These are typically possible to have repaid, although some are definitely much larger debts than others. Big or small, they still are not as large as the debt that we owe our Savior. As we see in the story, whatever forgiveness we give to our fellow men is the forgiveness we shall receive.

That is both comforting and scary. If you are good at forgiving everyone, you can feel pretty comfortable in knowing that you will be forgiven of your sins. However, I am not perfect at forgiving others, and I think most of us fall into that category. So if our forgiveness from our sins depends on the forgiveness that we give to others, how can we ever really be successful? How do we know if we’ve truly forgiven someone else?

I have thought and pondered on this question a lot. I try to say the words “I forgive you”, but sometimes I don’t fully mean it when I say it. I often carry hurt for a while after I have tried to verbally grant forgiveness, and sometimes I don’t really like being around those people anymore. Sometimes people really do break trust, and it would be stupid to place them in a place that would result in hurt again and again. Does that mean that I haven’t really forgiven them?

After a lot of prayer and discussions with trusted mentors, I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness happens when you no longer feel a need to “get even” with the person that has wronged you. When you no longer spend time dwelling on what they did and what you wish would happen, or looking forward to the day when their actions catch up to them as a personal vengeance, you can see them as a Child of God who is imperfect. You can open up to feel charity for them, and sorrow that someday they will have to pay for their actions and it will hurt them a lot. This kind of forgiveness is totally possible to achieve, and opens up the blessings of the mercy of our Savior to all people.

I would invite everyone to not take my word about what forgiveness means, but to study and pray about it, and then apply that answer to your life. I have found a much higher level of peace in my life in this application, and I know that peace will follow anyone who tries their best to forgive their fellowmen.

Fair Weather Fans

How do you know if someone is a committed fan? Is it if their Facebook cover photo is their favorite team? Is it how many times they post about the game or the stats? Is it the flag that hangs just under their country’s? Or is it the number of bumper stickers? Although I’m not exactly a professional sports fanatic myself, I’ve heard enough about “fair weathers” to know this behavior tends to infuriate what we may affectionately call the “die hards”.

So what makes a true die hard? These are the guys that never take down the flag, even if the team loses several years in a row. They still watch all of the games, they may have all the flags and the stickers, but to them, their team is much more than that. Basically, when the team is getting thrashed in the media, or maybe even worse, ignored by the media, these die hards stick by the name and wait patiently for better days. There is always the hope of next season.

So this is all a semi-cheesy lead into our relationship with Jesus Christ. Gotcha.

This past week we studied John 6. Picture this. As far as Christ’s popularity goes, this was his prime. All of his miracles had been well-broadcasted throughout the area. He had fed thousands of people twice with just a few loaves and fishes. People came from all over to listen to him, hoping to see his miracles for themselves.

Then we get to the sermon of the Bread of Life. Jesus speaks symbolically of the sacrament, and tells everyone that whoever will eat of his body and drink of his blood will have eternal life.

And guess what happened? Almost everyone left. That was it. It was really cool and interesting when bread was being “magically” mass produced, but as soon as Jesus announced that in order to be saved you would need to eat him… well, no one really paused to think about what that meant. Honestly, to those who were hearing about the symbolism of the sacrament for the first time, it would be surprising if they weren’t alarmed. But to simply get up and leave?

Imagine the thoughts and feelings that Jesus must have felt as he watched the better part of his followers leave without waiting for an explanation. Turning to the apostle Peter, he asked him if Peter too would leave.

Peter answered:  “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So it all boils down to this. Are we fair weather Christians? Do we only show our love for Christ when it is easy, and he’s obviously winning? When it’s comfortable? Or do we follow Him to the end? When He asks us to do seemingly crazy things (like eat His body and drink His blood), do we tell Him that He’s crazy, or do we humbly accept His will, do our best to act upon it, and wait patiently for an explanation?

Lost Things

This week I thought about some of the parables that we talked about in my New Testament class. Jesus taught three parables that are good to compare. They are the Parables of the Lost Things.

The first parable is of the Lost Sheep and the remaining 99. A shepherd had 100 sheep. One day he found that one of them had wandered off. Because of his love for each of his sheep individually, he left the 99 together and went searching for the one that had gotten lost.

The second is the parable of the Lost Coin. A woman had ten gold coins that were very precious to her. She found that one was lost, so she cleaned the entire house from top to bottom, looking in every corner until she finally found it and was happy.

The final parable of the three is about the Son of Perdition. A man had two sons. The younger of the two decided that he wanted his living now, instead of waiting for tradition when a son got his inheritance after the death of his father. His father allowed him to do so, so the young son took his portion early and left into a faraway land. He wasted his money away quickly, basically partying for a little while until he was completely broke. Once he had no money left, he had no choice but to wander around looking for work. There was a famine and he was very hungry. He finally found a job feeding pigs, and wished that he could eat the scraps that he fed them. Eventually he realized that his father’s servants lived better than he did, so he decided to return home disgraced and beg to be his father’s servant. As he got close to his father’s house, his father saw him and ran out to get him, embracing him as they met. He was so happy that his son had decided to come home that he threw a big party to celebrate.

So here is the question. How did each thing get lost?

Sheep make decisions, but they aren’t really capable of making elaborate plans. They don’t consciously decide they don’t want to belong to the fold. They just do what sheep do: put their heads down and eat. Sometimes they get so busy doing what sheep do that when they eventually look up after focusing on only the few feet of grass in front of them that they find themselves all alone, far away from the herd.

What about coins? Coins don’t think at all. It wasn’t the coin’s fault it got lost. The woman accidentally misplaced it, didn’t watch out for it, perhaps even neglected it. Once lost, there wasn’t really anything the coin could do to be found. All it could do was wait in darkness and dust for the woman to realize it was gone and frantically look for it.

Finally, what about the son? Well, the son could definitely make plans. The son willfully rebelled against his father. He took a large portion of his father’s estate, what his father had spent a lifetime working for, and wasted it within days. He really was a rebel.

So what do we learn from these stories? Two things. Be careful how you judge lost things. Be careful how you find lost things.

Not all lost things are consciously lost. Sometimes they are just busy doing what busy people do, and eventually find that they have lost their way. They didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And sometimes lost things don’t have much say in the matter. They might have been forgotten without many options of being found, like children for example. If children aren’t watched over, when they become a lost teenager we need to be careful in giving up when they wander. Sometimes though, they really are a rebel, and we need to know the difference.

When you try to find lost things, make sure you find them the way that they can be found. Coins and sheep need to be looked for with diligence, sometimes sacrificing other things in order for them to be located. Rebels though are different. They often need space and to feel the weight of their own decisions. Looking for them just pushes them away. But when they do come home, they need all the love and celebration that was given for the found coin and rescued sheep.

Also remember, we are all capable of being coins, sheep, and rebels. Make sure you do everything you can to be an agent to yourself, try not to be a coin waiting at the mercy of others. Take control of the decisions that you can make. Be careful of not being a sheep! Don’t get so busy doing what busy people do that you will be in danger of looking up and finding yourself lost. And do your best to not be a rebel. Really try to understand what happy, successful and experienced people are trying to tell you, and wait patiently for everything to make sense.

No Punishment for Your Best

This week is a short and simple concept. Even so, it has changed my perspective on life and has often given me the courage to do really hard things. The concept is that you will never ever be punished for doing your best to do what’s right. Here’s this week’s story.

In Mark chapter 5 we read about two people with very tragic trials in their lives. The first is Jairus. He opens the story by running to find Jesus because his daughter is at the point of death. He is also a prominent leader, probably a Pharisee (imagine what it must have felt like to have all the power in the city, but knowing that you have no power to do anything to save your child’s life!).

Jairus comes to Jesus and begs that Jesus come with him to his house to save his 12 year old daughter. Jesus takes compassion on him and starts to follow him. They are slow moving, however, because there is a huge crowd that is pushing and pulling on Jesus.

Meanwhile, there is the woman known as “the woman with the issue of blood”. She had some sort of blood disease that left her very sick. For 12 years she had battled with this disease, paying for many doctors until all of her money was gone, but to no avail. In short, she heard that Jesus is coming down the street and rushed out with the faith that if she could just touch his clothes, she would be healed. She manages to fight through everyone, touch him, and is instantly healed of her disease. She tries to quietly slip away, miracle obtained, but Jesus feels the power that she accessed by her faith and stops to finish teaching her about love, forgiveness and healing.

Meanwhile, Jairus is a father with a daughter moments away from death. There is no written evidence that he intervened during this miracle that Jesus paused to perform for this woman, however I don’t think it’s very difficult to imagine what he must have been feeling. Here he came during his hour of need to bring the Savior to his daughter to save her. They weren’t making very good time to get to his house because of the huge crowd of people following Jesus, and here Jesus was stopping mid-convoy to heal a woman! If it were me, who hasn’t personally felt the love a parent has for a child, I would be more than a little impatient and anxious. Even if he didn’t say anything or act impatient, I’m sure that a lot of things were running through his head that were less than charitable. At least they would have been running through mine.

During this healing, a servant comes and tells Jairus that it is too late, his daughter is dead. I imagine again the horrible pain this must have brought Jairus, crushing down upon him. It was too late. Yet Jesus had time for someone else. This was more than a small trial of faith.

And yet, Jesus sensed what must have been obvious despair and told Jairus “Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:36). They went on to Jairus’ house, in spite of the ridicule of non-believers, and Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Imagine the relief, joy, and strengthened faith that Jairus and his wife must have felt.

There are a lot of lessons that we can learn from this story. My focus today, however, is that Jairus did his best to be faithful under a lot of pressure. He probably lost his cool and doubted in the mercy of Christ when his daughter’s life was seemingly traded for the healing of another woman, randomly found by the way. Sometimes we feel that we are so desperately in need of help, and perhaps through our own initiation we seek out that help, only to have our needs deferred to another also in need. However, we are never punished for doing our best to do what is right.

Jesus took this time to teach a lesson. All things in life are reversible in His hands. Everything that has ever gone wrong in our life can be made whole and have the damaging effects erased. We will never go without because we exercised whatever little faith and patience we had, even if it was barely enough for the miracles we expected in our time frame and extremely lacking for the actual miracle and His time frame.