Sopstories

I am sure many have experienced this before. In my case, my experience with a certain person … P for pain…. had given me so much grief. P had subjected me to severe trials. God said to forgive… so I did. Unlike previous P’s, God tested me further. Where I parted ways with most other Ps I continued allowing this last one to have a place in my life. Needless to say there was more pain. God said to forgive, so I did. I dared not disobey. Jesus did say seventy times seven times right?

It did not even need seven times. The last straw came and it was a straw. Compared to the previous transgressions, this last one was minor. But it was as if I have had enough. I was through.

It was so bad that as I reflect on my walk this past year,  I saw that it had separated me from my God. Very much like Eve in the garden of Eden, when she recognised her nakedness and shame, and hid, I too was hiding from God. Hmmm perhaps that’s not a good analogy. I was more like Jonah, refusing to preach to Nineveh. I wanted to run away from God because I knew what God wanted and I was not prepared to give it to him or P.

Foolish? Surely so. I am usually Ms Pragmatism. I know that not to forgive causes more harm to me than to P. So what’s holding me back from setting myself free? After all I have been sorely tested so many times in the area of forgiveness. Each time all I needed was to ask for the grace to forgive and it happened. So why am I allowing a straw to break my back, and possible sever my relationship with God? The price to pay to hold on to anger and hurt does not commensurate with the “joy” of bearing a grudge. I mean, who in her right senses want to dwell in bitterness, when we can bask in love, joy and peace?

I cannot understand this. Pastor Derek in one of his sermons mentioned the fact that we have the power to forgive and withhold forgiveness… i just cannot find that passage. It is a familiar passage that has baffled me. Can it be that if i do not forgive, God does not forgive that person too? Could that be the reason some of us hold on to unforgiveness? to ensure that the sinner does not get liberation? I do not understand.

But i do know that Jesus said that we will be forgiven as we forgive. That alone is incentive enough surely, especially when we weigh the length of time on earth with eternity? I do not know about you, but i do not want to spend eternity in damnation because i indulged in my human emotions of vengeance and anger.

So the question remains… why is it that a straw is capable of breaking a camel’s back? Then it dawned on me. A straw will not break a camel’s back if the burdens of the past have been delivered to the destination. And if a straw is seemingly breaking our back could it be that we have not really cleansed ourselves from previous hurts but instead have kept them in our emotional store rooms, only to bring out and carried when a new hurt comes along.

Do i make sense? If so, then the only true liberation is thorough spring cleaning – not only when new year swings by, but constantly. That way, no straw … replace that with trivial matters… can ever break our relationship with God.