The other day, my grandson got very upset with my husband--and he wasn't even around!! Turns out that the little guy wasn't feeling so great, he got a little whiny, and suddenly remembered that PawPaw had not put up the slide for the pool this summer. Oh, was he furious! It didn't matter that the pool had been taken down nearly a month ago, nor that it was explained way back when it was first set up that the slide wouldn't work out this time. Nope. My little bundle of emotion was beside himself and he was crushed and mad that the slide was not in the picture this year.
According to his Mama, he pouted, sulked, and even cried for nearly 30 minutes over this incident. Guess he remembered he had something against his brother, huh--err, excuse me, his PawPaw, that is.
Do you think this is what Jesus was referring to when He made the statement about forgiveness? Hmn. Being mad over a slide seems pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? But hang on a minute. When I ponder some of the things that have irked me, maybe they are even more petty than this. How much time have I spent holding a grudge or refusing to let go of a debt that I felt was "owed to me" when in actuality, the account was never charged to begin with? Some of this results from simple misunderstandings rather than true crimes committed against me.
Case in point: this weekend we went away for Labor Day. Long story short: don't ever be spontaneous and head to the beach when it's this time of the year AND when there is a race going on nearby. The hotels were all filled for miles around Steve and I wound up driving all the way to Myrtle Beach and then on back to Columbia before we were able to find a place to stay. There's a lot more to this story as far as insights into our verse but I may save them for another blog. After our comedy of errors, we finally found a place to stay and then decided to spend the next day around Concord. Finding a hotel with a business center in it was one of the things I especially wanted and we did. We found one, checked in, and then quickly found out that they did not use Google Chrome on their systems so we checked back out within minutes.
While looking at my credit card transactions online yesterday, I noticed we had been charged for three rooms when we only stayed in two. I could surely recall the last one we stayed in 'cause we had specifically sought it out from staying there in December. However, from the Saturday night fiasco, I thought the one we checked into and back out of was the one showing on my statement as processed rather than pending. I gave it a day to see if it'd go away but no, it was still there this morning so I called to get it cleared up. The lady on duty was quite nice and we chatted about what had gone on. Long story short, she was going to look into it and call me back when she got the matter settled. However, the more I pondered it and checked and rechecked again to make sure the mistake wasn't on my part, yeah: you guessed it. It was!
What happened--other than my own goofiness--you might ask? Well, to begin with, this hotel was the most expensive one we stayed at. Obviously I wanted it to be the one taken off. (Hello, Greed, my ol' friend.) Next, it wasn't the "brand" we usually used so of course they had to have been the one to make the error. Lastly, if I had really taken time to think about all of this clearly, I would have seen that this hotel was in Columbia not Concord, which is where the continuation of the fiasco of our weekend jaunt took place.
So, I called with shame on my face and tried to get the woman I had spoken with to tell her of my blunder. Well, wouldn't you know that the devil is not happy when we try to acknowledge our mistakes so he let me speak to a different gal and then had the absolute gall to have the phone cut off! Grrrr. But--instead of it making me mad--I called right back, wound up talking to the original lady who promised to apologize profusely to the other woman, and we took care of my boo boo. We were laughing when it was all said and done and my head will keep this hotel chain in mind the next time Steve and I decide to be adventurous.
Do you see it, friends? We mess up. In our haste, we often make assumptions because we want to justify that we spent that much money. We want to deny that we would make such a foolish choice when our defenses are down, and we just wanted a place to rest our weary heads and bodies. Ahem. I'm not just talking to the choir right now, am I? Being tired, weary, frustrated, and feeling the need to just...to just...to just be "taken care of" --even though it may only be for one night--is no excuse to let our battle gear slide. Do you not know by now that when we expose ourselves to temptation that that is when the devil is the craftiest, the most wily, and the most seductive?
Okay, let's wind this up. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. Sometimes it's so much easier to look for someone else to blame for our mess ups than it is to face the fact that we invited them into our lives. We cry that we were taken advantage of, that we were cheated, that we were wronged when the truth is right there in front of us. It was me that initiated the fight, the quarrel, the misunderstanding. Oh no, not always but sometimes, sometimes, girlfriends, we are just as much to blame. Maybe even more. So then, when we stand in front of God with our prayers and our pleas for absolution, we are confronted with our own guilt and if we are to have peace with God (and don't we all want that?) we must confess to Him that we too need to be forgiven. The good thing? He said He would! He said He'd forgive us. How about that?!
In closing, we saw the movie "War Room" last night. The premise of the story is that we need to talk more to God and let Him handle our battles. The main character went from spending little pieces of time with God to spending hours in her prayer closet. When she got real with Him, He did marvelous things in her--in her. Yeah, He answered some great prayers on her behalf but the key point is that she was the one most in need. Before she could finger point, she had to deal with her own life. Like me, she found out there was plenty there to keep her in communication with God like never before. Let's do that now, friends, as we humble ourselves and ask Him to cleanse us and heal our wounds.
Dear Lord God, how I am convicted once again that it's me who makes for most of the troubles in my life. My lack of attention to details, my haste to get things done, and my forgetfulness of keeping my battle gear on often make up the majority of my anger issues. I cannot count the number of times I have blamed others for things, gotten mad when they responded in hurtful ways, and then acted to You as though I was the wronged party. Oh Lord: how do You put up with me?
Sigh.
Lord? Right now as I pray to You, many things vie for me to ask You but I cannot do this until I confess. I am the one in need of prayer this moment, Lord. My hotheadedness, my impatience, my poor planning have all led me to make choices that have had repercussions and/or consequences that often I felt were unjust. But I cannot in all honesty blame others for things that would have turned out so much differently had I first done my part. First. So, once again: it's me, it's me, it's me Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Thank You for also standing, ready to help, to heal, and to forgive me. Teach me the way of Jesus is my plea now and I ask these things in His precious name, Father. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for taking your time to read today!