Rob spoke about following the "Christ pattern of forgiveness."
When we face criticism, rumors and "chocolate covered turds (encouragement with a crappy core)we need to learn the fine art of forgiveness. If we, as pastors, fail to learn this art with will die by a thousand paper cuts. Because little hurts and big hurts have the same thing in common...they both hurt!
When we don't forgive a hurt done to us, we:
Hold back: We don't open up ourselves, we don't give our best and we lose our voice to speak boldly about the work of God. Holding back sounds like, "I'm not doing that again, I remember what happen last time."
Create lists and labels: We categorize people so they are easy to deal with or so we can right them off as nuts, trouble makers, (insert your favorite label here)____________.
Seek revenge: you get this one.
What we do with hurt:
Name it: Figure out exactly what is going on inside you and seek to understand it and what it does to you.
Accept it: Exercise humility and own what may be true while getting rid of the rest.
Absorb it: Begin to process the hurt so that you don't give it back or nurture it into maturity.
We can either die a slow death caused by anger and cynicism do to a thousand paper cuts or we can accept the momentary death cause by others only to be resurrected (and changed) through follow Christ's pattern of forgiveness.
*Not sure where Jesus was in all this, other than overtly, but good nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment