There’s a phrase the you hear a lot. I’ll start it and you finish it. “You reap what you….”
OK, got the phrase? If not, just wait. I’ll come back to it later.
I was helping someone walk through conflict with another friend a few weeks ago. The hard part in communicating during conflict is giving the person an appropriate way to respond. This is particularly difficult if the person can’t go back in time and fix what is causing the problem. As I was helping the person figure out what to communicate this problem arose. This isn’t really a post about fixing things.
So there was a time that I lied to my parents. They caught me in a blatant lie. I said I went to make a phone call (our house didn’t have cell reception). I’d left my phone at the house and they tried to call me when I was gone. Somehow my phone rang. I hurt their trust. This post isn’t really about trust either.
In the story Les Miserables there’s a scene where Jean Valjean stole a bunch of silver from a monastery and was captured shortly after. The priest responded by covering for him. Though, this post isn’t really about covering for people.
I had a problem one time where someone said something that deeply hurt me. This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time that happened. This was something that they couldn’t fix. There was no pulling the words out of the air, as with a vent hood and smoke from a stove. I had a choice to forgive. This is about forgiveness.
The Priest in Les Mis didn’t so much cover as he forgave. Forgiveness covers sin. [Tweet That]
My parents have since chosen to trust me. They chose to forgive and allow me to reprove myself.
The person my friend was dealing with, couldn’t go back and fix the problem. They had to choose to forgive. They didn’t like this reality. In this case the consequences of the mistake cost $. The reality is that Forgiveness is accepting the consequences of another’s mistake. [Tweet That]
When you can’t give someone an action in order to fix a problem the choice is forgiveness or grudge.
A grudge is like holding your breath and expecting the other person to suffocate. [Tweet That]
You reap what you….sow. It’s a truthful phrase
There’s another part that we miss sometimes. Gal. 6:7 isn’t Karma. [Tweet That]
Unlike Karma, your actions do affect a relationship and do require forgiveness. There’s a God and our relationship with him was broken. There’s a God who chose forgiveness so we wouldn’t suffocate on ourselves. Knowing we were forgiven and what we were forgiven from allows us to forgive others. Jesus accepted the consequences of our sin.
You will reap what was sown. The question is who did you trust to sow? [Tweet That]
If you trust Jesus, you reap what Jesus has sown. [Tweet That]
There is forgiveness.
These are our just desserts.