Walk with me in a meditation on the word at Psalm 25:1-10:
To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
There is one God; I acknowledge you as God, and confess I am not God. Help me to pray and act that way.
O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame;
do not let my enemies exult over me.
Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
I put my trust in the one who has always loved me and always sought to help me. I trust you, O God, and I trust those who choose to trust in you. I have my enemies, and I do not expect that I will always be right, or that I will always win. Please, on the days I will not be victorious, on the days I must be humbled, let it be humility that I learn and not humiliation that I experience. Help me to watch and wait for your movement, O God, so that I may walk alongside you and avoid vain, ignorant, or evil ways. At the end of the day, may shame be the reward of those who have behaved shamefully, for those who knowingly and persistently ignore your will and your way.
Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light upon my path. Your word reveals your path to me, and yet, you mark the way that I should go in other ways as well. You bless some efforts more than others. You provide the resources for some work and not others. You bring me joy, a spiritual satisfaction, when I do certain things that is notably different than others. You create fruit from certain seeds that I plant, and not others. Let me examine my life to see what you mark, where you bless, what you provide, when you bring joy, and what you multiply. Let me examine this in prayer with you until a path is clearer, if it takes me all day long. If the path remains foggy, help me understand the lack of clarity tells me something, too.
Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD,
and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness' sake, O LORD!
Your love and mercy are ancient and everlasting; they changed this world before I was born, and they will continue to bring life long after I am dust. You have not forgotten the first time I faithfully spoke your name as a child, and yet I ask you to forget the first time, and every time, I acted like I didn’t know you at all. You must wonder if I will ever grow up. After I have learned my lesson, help me to forget the details. Let me have at least temporary amnesia, so that I might be able to function without attempting to carry the oppressive burden that Jesus has already taken away from me. Remember my faithfulness, remember my love, remember the good things in my life, O Lord, because you are good. Your steadfast love never ceases. May your goodness bear fruit in my life for your glory, O God.
Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
You are really the only one who can believably teach us what is good. Thank you, O God, that you do instruct us, hard-headed, hard-nosed, stiff necked people, in your way. Instead of living in immoderate pride, help us to see ourselves as you see us, God. May we understand humility, not as some sort of feigned self-abasement. Instead, help us to see humility as understand who you are, understand who others are, and understanding who we are. You value us, perhaps for reasons we do not understand. As we become truly humble, may your path for us become more clear.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
Whatever path is yours, we will always be able to recognize this about it: it will be the way of steadfast love, it will be the way of faithfulness. Knowing that, let us behave toward you as you have behaved toward us.
Grace, and peace,
Ron
Showing posts with label forget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forget. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Letting go ...
Today we have the last devotional of Shiann’s “Shack” series:
Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack; it’s about letting go of another man’s throat.
I don’t know about your brain, but mine doesn’t forget things I’d like it to while it forgets tons of things that I want to keep. I do suspect it to be the human condition, but it is not God’s condition. God has the ability to forget or remember at will. He forgets because he chooses to do so. He forgives our sins and then doesn’t see them anymore.
I don’t forget the sins I have committed or those others have used, intentionally or not, to hurt me. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation is the fullness of the process, as discussed in a previous thought, but they are not the same. I repeat that for several reasons. When we tell someone to forgive and forget, we are telling him/her something that God does not command.
In the context of this quote, forgiveness is freeing a person into God’s hand. When I forgive, I allow God to pursue the other and allow my heart to be softened.
Forgiveness has a long list of “it is nots.” It is not reconciliation. It is not sweeping the wrong under the rug. It is not a discontinuation of consequences.
There are times that we need to walk away. We need to forget in the sense that we don’t allow things to hold power over us. We need to allow ourselves to forget enough to allow another the room to heal and grow. We need to forget by not using a truth as a weapon.
There are times when we need to remember; times when forgetting would compromise safety of ourselves and others. Remember so that we can learn and not make a similar mistake.
I hope you have the courage to forgive in the hard times. I hope you have the courage to allow reconciliation even when you don’t feel like it.
When you choose to forgive another, you love him well.
May you choose to love another well today.
Many Blessings,
Shiann
Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack; it’s about letting go of another man’s throat.
I don’t know about your brain, but mine doesn’t forget things I’d like it to while it forgets tons of things that I want to keep. I do suspect it to be the human condition, but it is not God’s condition. God has the ability to forget or remember at will. He forgets because he chooses to do so. He forgives our sins and then doesn’t see them anymore.
I don’t forget the sins I have committed or those others have used, intentionally or not, to hurt me. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation is the fullness of the process, as discussed in a previous thought, but they are not the same. I repeat that for several reasons. When we tell someone to forgive and forget, we are telling him/her something that God does not command.
In the context of this quote, forgiveness is freeing a person into God’s hand. When I forgive, I allow God to pursue the other and allow my heart to be softened.
Forgiveness has a long list of “it is nots.” It is not reconciliation. It is not sweeping the wrong under the rug. It is not a discontinuation of consequences.
There are times that we need to walk away. We need to forget in the sense that we don’t allow things to hold power over us. We need to allow ourselves to forget enough to allow another the room to heal and grow. We need to forget by not using a truth as a weapon.
There are times when we need to remember; times when forgetting would compromise safety of ourselves and others. Remember so that we can learn and not make a similar mistake.
I hope you have the courage to forgive in the hard times. I hope you have the courage to allow reconciliation even when you don’t feel like it.
When you choose to forgive another, you love him well.
May you choose to love another well today.
Many Blessings,
Shiann
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The forgotten jar ...
Hear the word of God:
Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, "What do you want with her?" or "Why are you talking to her?" The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?" So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
John 4:27-30
Every day, year after year, the woman came to fetch water. She knew the walk to and from the well. She probably even took the same water jar day after day. She knew exactly how much water she was able to carry in that trusted jar. After she had heard those words, "I Am The Messiah!" She took off running. Not only that, she left the water jar. She didn't even realize that she had forgotten it, because her everyday life was now in the past.
She realized at that moment beside the well, that she could have a fresh start. She realized that she could have that living water. She met the man! She ran and told everyone along the way. "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?" She was so convincing that people came streaming from the village to see him!
They probably could sense the urgency in her voice, the changed appearance on her face. What could stir this woman out of her monotony?
What stirs you out of yours? Have you had that urgency in your voice and eyes? Have you had that skip in your step? Being with Jesus brings that to you. People can't help but stand up and take notice. Those that we work with and for cannot help but look at you and say, “Man, I want what they have.”
Conversations don't have to be forced. They flow out of the overflow of your life. Those streams of living water are coming out of you, because you took your time and made it all about Jesus! The woman had people lining up to come and see Jesus. She left her jar! I don't know if there is a huge significance there, but for me that means she put her past behind her and the so called important things in life and sought after Jesus Christ. What is your jar? What are you forced to leave behind because it is not as important anymore?
When you leave that jar, through being with Jesus, amazing things happen, both to you and those around you! As you worship today as a family, think of your jar, and leave it at the feet of Jesus!
Jason
Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, "What do you want with her?" or "Why are you talking to her?" The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?" So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
John 4:27-30
Every day, year after year, the woman came to fetch water. She knew the walk to and from the well. She probably even took the same water jar day after day. She knew exactly how much water she was able to carry in that trusted jar. After she had heard those words, "I Am The Messiah!" She took off running. Not only that, she left the water jar. She didn't even realize that she had forgotten it, because her everyday life was now in the past.
She realized at that moment beside the well, that she could have a fresh start. She realized that she could have that living water. She met the man! She ran and told everyone along the way. "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?" She was so convincing that people came streaming from the village to see him!
They probably could sense the urgency in her voice, the changed appearance on her face. What could stir this woman out of her monotony?
What stirs you out of yours? Have you had that urgency in your voice and eyes? Have you had that skip in your step? Being with Jesus brings that to you. People can't help but stand up and take notice. Those that we work with and for cannot help but look at you and say, “Man, I want what they have.”
Conversations don't have to be forced. They flow out of the overflow of your life. Those streams of living water are coming out of you, because you took your time and made it all about Jesus! The woman had people lining up to come and see Jesus. She left her jar! I don't know if there is a huge significance there, but for me that means she put her past behind her and the so called important things in life and sought after Jesus Christ. What is your jar? What are you forced to leave behind because it is not as important anymore?
When you leave that jar, through being with Jesus, amazing things happen, both to you and those around you! As you worship today as a family, think of your jar, and leave it at the feet of Jesus!
Jason
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Will the real rebel please stand up?
Yesterday, we made this observation: “In a real way, to decide for yourself that you can make your own rules when the community has already established certain specific rules is to violate community.”
What do we do when someone in the community makes up their own rules? How do we respond when someone among the people of God appears to ignore the will of the other people?
Let’s consider the possibilities. Let’s assume that this person does not act this way out of ignorance, because that difficulty would be easily repaired with proper education.
Perhaps this member of the community has stumbled across a new situation, a case that looks like the standard rule fits, but it really doesn’t at all. It happens every day – one principle that normally works just fine comes into conflict with another principle. How do you choose? Which principle trumps the other? If these principles are in conflict (and sometimes they are), how do we resolve the principles of correctness, inclusiveness, justice, love, mercy, righteousness, simplicity, truth, and unity? I’ve put them in alphabetical order, but how ought we to prioritize them? Should the individual attempt this on their own, or wouldn’t it be more prudent to work this out in a community of discernment (Acts 15)? These situations also reveal the real need for communication on both sides. Individuals should consider discussing the issue with their peers not just for the sake of gathering wisdom, but also that other people might understand that these individuals see themselves to be working with something that they perceive to not be the typical case. On the other hand, God requires his people to go to one who has violated the norms of the community and hold them accountable if they discover that such a person has really violated those norms (Matthew 5, 18).
Perhaps the person who breaks the norm is serving as a prophet within the community. They believe that they are speaking God’s truth to God’s people. It may be that the community has drifted away from the story of God, and as it has drifted, it has begun to do things which are not consistent with the workings of the heavenly kingdom. It is not living out the kingdom story. In this case, the change of behavior shouldn’t be a well-kept secret, but should be a statement clear in its reasoning and its call to return to scripture and to the tradition of God’s people. It should be honest in its attempts to rediscover the truthful behavior of the people of God. This is a place where Jesus lived much of his life – yet we need to remember that we’re not Jesus, are we? This is not first century Judea, is it? The issues of establishing a counterculture in the midst of an imperial culture aren’t the same, are they?
Or, it could be that the incautious soul forgets or becomes lax about the choices that have been made among the people of God. What this person needs is accountability from his or her people. The people of God, or someone within that community, needs to recall this person to community behavior with a kingdom spirit. And, unless one has a rebellious spirit, such a one will submit to their accountability to the people of God. On one hand, such a person does not seem to carry the guilt that the rebellious might, yet frequently such a callous disregard for communal thinking is just as destructive to the well-being, the peace, the shalom, of the community.
On the other hand, the rebel spirit resists the call to submission and to community altogether. This rascal resents accountability. Perhaps they care more about their own needs and desires than the purposes of the people who make up the body of Christ. Or, perhaps they care more about getting their way than others. More than a few control freaks have a spirit destructive to community (isn’t this how we perceive some of the Pharisees to have been?). They might deny it, but they frequently behave as if they, and not Jesus, functioned as the head of the body.
This fourth possibility, that of rebellion against the people of God, leads us back to the question, “What do we do when someone in the community makes up their own rules?” Think about this, and we will discuss this difficult possibility more tomorrow.
In the meantime, live among God’s people by showing grace and living in peace,
Ron
What do we do when someone in the community makes up their own rules? How do we respond when someone among the people of God appears to ignore the will of the other people?
Let’s consider the possibilities. Let’s assume that this person does not act this way out of ignorance, because that difficulty would be easily repaired with proper education.
Perhaps this member of the community has stumbled across a new situation, a case that looks like the standard rule fits, but it really doesn’t at all. It happens every day – one principle that normally works just fine comes into conflict with another principle. How do you choose? Which principle trumps the other? If these principles are in conflict (and sometimes they are), how do we resolve the principles of correctness, inclusiveness, justice, love, mercy, righteousness, simplicity, truth, and unity? I’ve put them in alphabetical order, but how ought we to prioritize them? Should the individual attempt this on their own, or wouldn’t it be more prudent to work this out in a community of discernment (Acts 15)? These situations also reveal the real need for communication on both sides. Individuals should consider discussing the issue with their peers not just for the sake of gathering wisdom, but also that other people might understand that these individuals see themselves to be working with something that they perceive to not be the typical case. On the other hand, God requires his people to go to one who has violated the norms of the community and hold them accountable if they discover that such a person has really violated those norms (Matthew 5, 18).
Perhaps the person who breaks the norm is serving as a prophet within the community. They believe that they are speaking God’s truth to God’s people. It may be that the community has drifted away from the story of God, and as it has drifted, it has begun to do things which are not consistent with the workings of the heavenly kingdom. It is not living out the kingdom story. In this case, the change of behavior shouldn’t be a well-kept secret, but should be a statement clear in its reasoning and its call to return to scripture and to the tradition of God’s people. It should be honest in its attempts to rediscover the truthful behavior of the people of God. This is a place where Jesus lived much of his life – yet we need to remember that we’re not Jesus, are we? This is not first century Judea, is it? The issues of establishing a counterculture in the midst of an imperial culture aren’t the same, are they?
Or, it could be that the incautious soul forgets or becomes lax about the choices that have been made among the people of God. What this person needs is accountability from his or her people. The people of God, or someone within that community, needs to recall this person to community behavior with a kingdom spirit. And, unless one has a rebellious spirit, such a one will submit to their accountability to the people of God. On one hand, such a person does not seem to carry the guilt that the rebellious might, yet frequently such a callous disregard for communal thinking is just as destructive to the well-being, the peace, the shalom, of the community.
On the other hand, the rebel spirit resists the call to submission and to community altogether. This rascal resents accountability. Perhaps they care more about their own needs and desires than the purposes of the people who make up the body of Christ. Or, perhaps they care more about getting their way than others. More than a few control freaks have a spirit destructive to community (isn’t this how we perceive some of the Pharisees to have been?). They might deny it, but they frequently behave as if they, and not Jesus, functioned as the head of the body.
This fourth possibility, that of rebellion against the people of God, leads us back to the question, “What do we do when someone in the community makes up their own rules?” Think about this, and we will discuss this difficult possibility more tomorrow.
In the meantime, live among God’s people by showing grace and living in peace,
Ron
Friday, July 18, 2008
Not by bread alone
Today, simply a scripture. As you read these instructions of Moses to the Israelites, meditate on how they apply to your life today. The Israelites were about to make a transition from the wilderness to the land of plenty, but still there were enemies to fight and land to conquer. Consider the lessons about bread and prosperity, as well as remembrance and thankfulness contained in this passage:
Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth. Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It's land where you'll never go hungry - always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up - make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!" - well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors - as it is today.
If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it - destruction. You'll go to your doom - the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God.
Deuternomy 8 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Grace and peace,
Ron
Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth. Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It's land where you'll never go hungry - always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up - make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!" - well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors - as it is today.
If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it - destruction. You'll go to your doom - the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God.
Deuternomy 8 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Grace and peace,
Ron
Friday, July 4, 2008
Remember to forget
Today, a poem to bring the word of the day to us.
“Forgetfulness”
by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
“Forget” is an important, if not often used word in the Bible.
Moses, as he preaches his way through Deuteronomy,
seems to be very concerned:
Concerned that we don’t forget the things that we have seen,
Concerned that we don’t forget the covenant with the Lord,
Concerned that we don’t forget the Lord who gave it,
Concerned that we will forget God by not keeping his commandments,
Concerned that we will forget God and serve other gods,
Concerned that we will forget the times that we have provoked God to wrath.
God is too important to forget.
God’s covenant faithfulness is too powerful to forget.
God’s generosity in blessing would make one ungrateful to forget.
God’s commandments provide protection to us
that it is in our best interest not to forget.
God with a capital G is to be remembered,
while gods with a little g need to be forgotten.
Then, at the end of his sermon, Moses gives the children of Israel
an odd little command:
he tells them to not forget to forget the Amalekites.
I’m serious.
Here it is:
“Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget" (Dt 25:19).
So how do you remember if you’ve kept the instructions of Moses?
If you remember, have you forgotten what you were supposed to forget?
At first this question may seem absurd, and even frivolous.
But it’s not.
Let me explain.
Being human means that six things happen in our lives most every day:
1 - We do good things to other people,
2 - They do good things to us,
3 - Other people do good things to other people;
4 - We do bad things to other people,
5 - They do bad things to us,
6 - Other people do bad things to other people.
Now, certain things seem immediately and intuitively obvious:
We would like to wipe 4, 5, and 6 off the list.
Sometimes people think they’re doing 2 or 3 and yet they’re really doing 5 or 6.
Sometimes we think that we are doing 1, but really what we’re up to is number 4.
Since, to quote Novalee Nation, “we've all got meanness in us,” sometimes we even do 4-6 on purpose.
These six things are all part of being human.
The Amalekites were humans who had done some bad things to the children of Israel.
Things so bad that you wouldn’t want to talk about them in front of the children.
Moses told the children of Israel to forget that the Amalekites even existed, to “blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
Somebody wrote it down so that the children of Israel wouldn’t forget the command to forget. Ironic, hunh.
Ironic because it points out the extreme difficulty of forgetting when
someone inflicts a trauma on us.
Ironic because it also points out the dangers of trying to bury the memory
in our subconscious as well.
So what were the children of Israel supposed to do with their pain
and their memories of it?
What are we supposed to do with our pain and our memories of it?
We can’t, and we shouldn’t, forget the pain caused by other people.
We can’t, and we shouldn’t, forget the other people.
We can and we should wipe out the power of that pain over our life. And, until they repent and repair the relationship, we should wipe out the power of those other people in our life.
Absolutely.
That doesn’t mean that we forget those other people.
That doesn’t mean that stop praying for those other people.
It might even help if we can love those other people,
because then we can start loving ourselves again.
Especially when we’re supposed to be a part of the same family.
“It takes two to tango,” our dads may have told us
as we tried to blame the fight on our sister or our brother.
And we believed it, because much of the time it is true.
So when we hate somebody else for something they have done to us
there remains a little nagging voice, whispering in our ear, that says,
“There might be, you know, just one half of one ten thousandth of a part
of possibility that I might have, possibly, contributed to the problem.”
So, maybe, just maybe, to be mad at,
or to hate somebody for something they have done
causes some of that anger, or loathing, or hate to stick to ourselves.
Which just kills us. Much worse than it affects anybody else.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t me mad, or angry, or even furious at someone
who wrongs us?
Absolutely not.
Pull out your Bible. Turn to Psalms.
It is full of psalms called laments.
Laments are songs where the children of God have been getting mugged by the “others”.
The children of God get tired of it, so they cry out to God.
Unfiltered. Uncensored. Unafraid. Inspired.
Here is a small sample:
"Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none” (Ps 10:15).
“The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and his soul hates the lover of violence. On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and sulfur; a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps 11:5-6).
“May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own — who is our master?’” (Ps 12:3-4).
Notice that the children of God are not asking God to let them break arms,
rain coals, and cut off lips.
They’re asking God to do it.
They want God to “cry ‘Havoc’ and let loose the dogs of war.”
This is an extreme variant of number 6.
And then they do an amazing thing: they leave it up to God to do,
or not to do, what they have asked.
First, they describe in great detail exactly how they feel about their pain
to the Creator of the Universe,
then they describe in graphic detail the kind of pain
they want their enemies to experience,
and then they let it go.
Probably not after one lament;
maybe not even after one hundred.
But as long as they’ve got a hold on the pain and anger,
it has a hold on them.
As long as we have a hold on it,
it has a hold on us.
We can’t stop the memories in the present of the power of pain in our past,
But the pain will stop when we stop giving the memories of our past
power over the present.
Forget the Amalekites; God has removed us from their power.
Forget the Amalekites; God has dealt with them,
or is going to, soon, and very soon.
Forget the Amalekites.
I know that this sounds simplistic.
Perhaps it is; but perhaps sometimes we just make the answers too complex.
We tend to think that our problems are too complex for simple solutions.
And that may be.
Yet sometimes the truth is that we just have to keep doing the simple thing
until it finally works.
Sooner or later the children of God have to decide:
Decide to go gather straw and begin making brick again, or
start picking grapes, grapes in clusters as big as a man.
Decide to parse out every violation of the Law they have ever done, or
praise God for the grace that saved them from that indictment.
Decide to bathe in the river of wrongs done by the Pharaoh in Egypt
and themselves in the desert, or
cross the river and wipe out the power of the past
by embracing God’s power in the present.
What do we need to decide?
Our Father is trying to awaken us out of our nightmare to show us that
he has disposed of our monsters, chased off our fears.
Now we need to recognize his face, remember his strength,
see where we’re at, and decide to forget the monsters.
Remember to forget.
Grace, grace gives peace,
Ron
“Forgetfulness”
by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
“Forget” is an important, if not often used word in the Bible.
Moses, as he preaches his way through Deuteronomy,
seems to be very concerned:
Concerned that we don’t forget the things that we have seen,
Concerned that we don’t forget the covenant with the Lord,
Concerned that we don’t forget the Lord who gave it,
Concerned that we will forget God by not keeping his commandments,
Concerned that we will forget God and serve other gods,
Concerned that we will forget the times that we have provoked God to wrath.
God is too important to forget.
God’s covenant faithfulness is too powerful to forget.
God’s generosity in blessing would make one ungrateful to forget.
God’s commandments provide protection to us
that it is in our best interest not to forget.
God with a capital G is to be remembered,
while gods with a little g need to be forgotten.
Then, at the end of his sermon, Moses gives the children of Israel
an odd little command:
he tells them to not forget to forget the Amalekites.
I’m serious.
Here it is:
“Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget" (Dt 25:19).
So how do you remember if you’ve kept the instructions of Moses?
If you remember, have you forgotten what you were supposed to forget?
At first this question may seem absurd, and even frivolous.
But it’s not.
Let me explain.
Being human means that six things happen in our lives most every day:
1 - We do good things to other people,
2 - They do good things to us,
3 - Other people do good things to other people;
4 - We do bad things to other people,
5 - They do bad things to us,
6 - Other people do bad things to other people.
Now, certain things seem immediately and intuitively obvious:
We would like to wipe 4, 5, and 6 off the list.
Sometimes people think they’re doing 2 or 3 and yet they’re really doing 5 or 6.
Sometimes we think that we are doing 1, but really what we’re up to is number 4.
Since, to quote Novalee Nation, “we've all got meanness in us,” sometimes we even do 4-6 on purpose.
These six things are all part of being human.
The Amalekites were humans who had done some bad things to the children of Israel.
Things so bad that you wouldn’t want to talk about them in front of the children.
Moses told the children of Israel to forget that the Amalekites even existed, to “blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
Somebody wrote it down so that the children of Israel wouldn’t forget the command to forget. Ironic, hunh.
Ironic because it points out the extreme difficulty of forgetting when
someone inflicts a trauma on us.
Ironic because it also points out the dangers of trying to bury the memory
in our subconscious as well.
So what were the children of Israel supposed to do with their pain
and their memories of it?
What are we supposed to do with our pain and our memories of it?
We can’t, and we shouldn’t, forget the pain caused by other people.
We can’t, and we shouldn’t, forget the other people.
We can and we should wipe out the power of that pain over our life. And, until they repent and repair the relationship, we should wipe out the power of those other people in our life.
Absolutely.
That doesn’t mean that we forget those other people.
That doesn’t mean that stop praying for those other people.
It might even help if we can love those other people,
because then we can start loving ourselves again.
Especially when we’re supposed to be a part of the same family.
“It takes two to tango,” our dads may have told us
as we tried to blame the fight on our sister or our brother.
And we believed it, because much of the time it is true.
So when we hate somebody else for something they have done to us
there remains a little nagging voice, whispering in our ear, that says,
“There might be, you know, just one half of one ten thousandth of a part
of possibility that I might have, possibly, contributed to the problem.”
So, maybe, just maybe, to be mad at,
or to hate somebody for something they have done
causes some of that anger, or loathing, or hate to stick to ourselves.
Which just kills us. Much worse than it affects anybody else.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t me mad, or angry, or even furious at someone
who wrongs us?
Absolutely not.
Pull out your Bible. Turn to Psalms.
It is full of psalms called laments.
Laments are songs where the children of God have been getting mugged by the “others”.
The children of God get tired of it, so they cry out to God.
Unfiltered. Uncensored. Unafraid. Inspired.
Here is a small sample:
"Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none” (Ps 10:15).
“The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and his soul hates the lover of violence. On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and sulfur; a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps 11:5-6).
“May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own — who is our master?’” (Ps 12:3-4).
Notice that the children of God are not asking God to let them break arms,
rain coals, and cut off lips.
They’re asking God to do it.
They want God to “cry ‘Havoc’ and let loose the dogs of war.”
This is an extreme variant of number 6.
And then they do an amazing thing: they leave it up to God to do,
or not to do, what they have asked.
First, they describe in great detail exactly how they feel about their pain
to the Creator of the Universe,
then they describe in graphic detail the kind of pain
they want their enemies to experience,
and then they let it go.
Probably not after one lament;
maybe not even after one hundred.
But as long as they’ve got a hold on the pain and anger,
it has a hold on them.
As long as we have a hold on it,
it has a hold on us.
We can’t stop the memories in the present of the power of pain in our past,
But the pain will stop when we stop giving the memories of our past
power over the present.
Forget the Amalekites; God has removed us from their power.
Forget the Amalekites; God has dealt with them,
or is going to, soon, and very soon.
Forget the Amalekites.
I know that this sounds simplistic.
Perhaps it is; but perhaps sometimes we just make the answers too complex.
We tend to think that our problems are too complex for simple solutions.
And that may be.
Yet sometimes the truth is that we just have to keep doing the simple thing
until it finally works.
Sooner or later the children of God have to decide:
Decide to go gather straw and begin making brick again, or
start picking grapes, grapes in clusters as big as a man.
Decide to parse out every violation of the Law they have ever done, or
praise God for the grace that saved them from that indictment.
Decide to bathe in the river of wrongs done by the Pharaoh in Egypt
and themselves in the desert, or
cross the river and wipe out the power of the past
by embracing God’s power in the present.
What do we need to decide?
Our Father is trying to awaken us out of our nightmare to show us that
he has disposed of our monsters, chased off our fears.
Now we need to recognize his face, remember his strength,
see where we’re at, and decide to forget the monsters.
Remember to forget.
Grace, grace gives peace,
Ron
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