Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
The weather was perfect today for a morning walk. Someone called while I was walking so when I came to Master Park I made my way to my favorite bench so I could continue the conversation without getting distracted and walking into a telephone pole. I’ve had some near misses in the past! While I was chatting, suddenly a city worker driving a Gator came flying by startling me. He probably didn’t come that close to hitting me but I drew my legs in and exclaimed “Whoa!” A minute later a second one came by but not so quickly. I finished my conversation, and made a couple of laps around the ball fields. By then both men were down on the lower level in conversation about how to fill a low, wet area by the bleachers. On my second lap the first man stopped me and said, “I want to apologize for scaring you.” I said that was ok but he said again, “I’m sorry.” I replied that I appreciated all that they did to keep the park nice and told him to have a blessed day. It’s nice to receive apologies when someone commits a grievance against us, but it doesn’t always happen. Our scripture doesn’t say forgive if you receive an apology. It says, forgive as the Lord forgave you. Sometimes we encounter people or are in relationships with people who are difficult, who harm us and are unrepentant. We can choose to be irritated, bitter, upset or resentful; that’s a normal human response. But we can also choose to carry enough niceness and love for ourselves and the other party. Jesus did that all the way to the cross. Letting love fill our hearts brings us a great deal more peace than letting our hearts become filled with bitterness. The choice really is ours. We can rise to the higher level with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Precious Lord, we are so blessed to be in relationship with you. It is from your example that we learn to love those who are difficult and those who offend us. Fill us with your love so that it might overflow onto others. We pray everything in your Son’s name. Amen.
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