A Familiar Story
Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” Matthew 18:32-35
One of the things I feel like I figured out was the idea of forgiveness. A lot of it has to do with my wife, who has been very gracious toward me and where I truly felt I understood the love of God through the love she has shown me. I am eternally grateful for her. But even as this concept of forgiveness has always been one that I seemingly got, there are times where I miss the mark. One has been with my youngest daughter, who God uses to continually challenge both my level of patience and degree of forgiveness. You do not have to ask me how great a challenge both of those are. My wife, who is the epitome of forgiveness, will gladly tell you. Nonetheless, my church has started a great series on rebuilding relationships. It has done what God always tends to do: hit you at the right time with the right message. It has helped to better place me in a position to rebuild one of the most important relationships one has: between a parent and their child. Now there are a lot of dynamics to this that go into the story, but one thing remains clear. The relationship is broken, and it somehow must be fixed. Sound like a familiar story to you?
Our God is in the business of restoring relationships, and as such, there can be no greater example of God working through us than to restore our broken relationships. We should all know by now that we serve a God who is a restorer. For example, He restored King Jeroboam’s hand to full functionality after Jeroboam spoke against His prophet, and of course, Jesus’s healing many throughout His ministry. But God’s restoration goes beyond just physical ailments. He restores spiritually and mentally. I think of the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus and how many were saved saying, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42b) These are all basic and fundamental truths that we know about God. Yet, we often forget this God when we ourselves are wronged or done harm. The verses above speak to this very dynamic and serve as both a reminder and a warning. We are to remember that God forgave us for sins that were beyond our ever being able to fix. Much like it, we are to be equally as willing to forgive. This is not to say that we should fix relationships with for lack of better term ‘toxic’ people who continually tear us down and distract us from God’s will for our lives. But we should look deeply at those relationships and ask some tough questions. Is this relationship important to us? Is there value in restoring this relationship? Can we ourselves grow from the experience? Can they benefit from the grace God has given me? If we have more ‘Yes’ than ‘No’ answers, perhaps it is a time for us to reconsider our stances and look beyond what pain or hurt we may have experienced and remember the one who paid the price with His life so that we may have everlasting life with God.
God will not give us a burden that we cannot bear. Jesus said, “For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” If we are troubled with the weight of anger and disappointment that has fractured our relationship with others, perhaps now is the time to place that weight in the hands of Jesus Christ. Let us evaluate our broken relationships and consider the possibility that we can mend them much like God has restored the relationship He has with us. What relationship will you consider rebuilding sooner rather than later? How can you let go of past transgressions to forgive as God has forgiven you? My prayer is that we find ways to restore relationships with others because when think of God restoring our relationship with Him, it is a familiar story. Amen.