Audience Of One
Each week I post a summary of my Sunday Sermon as a weekly inspiration to social media. I use these media outlets to plant seeds of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am the pastor of WE Church at a retirement community. I plant seeds of love, healing, health and hope according to the knowledge I receive from the word of God and direction from the Holy Spirit.
Most messages are well received by the audience determined and deemed compatible by the algorithms created and executed by these social platforms. However, I receive my fair share of judgmental, condemning and downright hateful comments.
Surprisingly, a great number of these are from professed christians.
I think life does this to us, you know?
We experience disappointments, loss, trials, failures and betrayals that leave us skeptic.
Life leaves us wounded and scarred, always looking for a reason not to trust.
When we stop trusting…
We rebel.
We isolate.
We let bitter-root take hold.
Bitterness settles in the deepest crevices of our being.
This is why it is so important to keep filling our hearts and minds with the word of God. The more we pour the word of God in, the more the things of this world push out. The displacement of the things of this world should be our destination for this life’s journey, amen?
Enter Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind.” John 1:1-4 NASB
Forgiveness is like using the sharpest of spades along with a little salt! It gets down in the dark, most inner parts, removing it all from the root.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, but it does mean the beginning of letting go of the attached emotions to the offense. It means pushing on towards freedom from the weight of all that baggage you’ve been carrying around.
I used to be so angry, I was happy on the outside to people I didn’t know, but I could be so mean to my family that loved me. That anger was from years of unforgiveness and bitterness that stemmed from offense after offense I took all too personal. The abuse I endured had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.
We can keep ourselves from a lot of suffering if we could internalize three truths:
Hurting people hurt other people. It’s not about you, it’s about them and where they are in their journey. Don’t take it personally, forgive, let it go and move on.
Where there is strife, there is someone’s pride. The strongest isn’t who wins the argument, the strongest is the first to concede and admit they are wrong and ask forgiveness.
Suffering is optional. If all else fails, speak to a pastor or trusted christian mentor in your life. Read a book. The one that was life changing for me is “How to stop the Pain” by Dr. James B. Richards.
We are all broken.
We are all healing.
We are all just at different stages of the process.
The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well!
