Reconciliation is a cool word. A Dictionary definition I found is “The reestablishing of a friendly relationship”. I’ve always been taught that reconciliation is restoring a relationship that was broken and mending it back together.
In the beginning, God created man and had relationship with them. He even walked with them in the garden! But sin came and broke the perfect bond that man had with God. Reconciliation needed to happen, so God made a plan to fix this broken relationship. This plan was not an easy one, but it was necessary. He was to send His only Son to the earth to live and then die a very painful death. But this was worth it to God because He loves His creation Soooo much! Jesus bearing the weight of all humanity’s sin was worth it because it meant that our close relationship that man once had in the garden would be restored. We can once again come into a right relationship with God with closeness and intimacy. We don’t have to go through a priest or other meditators to get to Him. We get to enjoy the closeness of God Himself in our lives. This was His initial purpose on earth before sin. And after we die here on earth, we get to experience even more intimacy with Him for eternity. It is truly the gospel. It is truly good news!
Lately I’ve had to do some reconciliation with a teammate of mine. Chenea had been my team leader for 3 months earlier in the Race, and now I am her team leader for the last few months. She has been such a close friend and has poured into my life in so many ways this year. I am not the same person today because of her. She is someone who is a lot of fun to be around and can go into the most in depth conversations about God. I enjoy our friendship a lot.
But something happened this past week that brought some division. We got talking about theology (which we both love to do). We had some disagreements about some things and it got to the point where voices were being raised at each other. We recognized that things were getting pretty heated and slowed down to talk about it. She told me that she felt like she was being attacked by me and that I wasn’t hearing her side of things. In my mind (and selfishness and pride) I was thinking “I know I’m not hearing your side of things, it’s because I’m trying to get my point across”. Wow Jordan. Wow. We talked more and without really saying it, we agreed to disagree. We left with no hard feelings, or so I thought.
That night when I went to sleep I could not fall asleep. I kept having arguments with her in my head. I kept trying to prove her wrong. I was seeing my pride so clearly in all of this. But although I was seeing my pride, I was helpless to remove it. Something God has been teaching me lately is to work with Him in taking away sin in my life. It’s not just Jordan working on stuff and it’s not just God working on stuff. It is also neither Jordan and God both working on it separately. What it is, is both Jordan and God working together to see sin removed in my life. It’s a partnership. We co-labour. So I went to bed feeling uneasy about the situation and woke up feeling the same way. I knew I needed to talk to her again. She was gone in the morning to get coffee before church, so I couldn’t get this bad feeling off until I talked about it. My teammate Wayne was there and so I brought up with him how I was feeling and talked about what happened the day before in our argument. Wayne said something profound to me that has helped in this relationship and will help in my future relationships as well. He said something along the lines of, “Jordan, have you been validating her?” It hit me hard that I wasn’t doing this. I came to her wanting to get my point across and I never asked questions to understand her side of things. I never pointed out things in her that I saw she did well. I was basically just telling her what she was lacking in without telling her what she was really good in. After Wayne told me this, my demeanor changed and I was so excited to share with Chenea my new revelation.
The next day there was still some tension between us. We were not the usual happy, friendly people we usually are around each other. I knew I still needed to talk to her. So in the evening I pulled Chenea aside and talked about the situation some more. I apologized for how I came across to her and how I didn’t see it as loving or uplifting. I apologized for trying to teach without hearing her out first. She accepted my apology and felt loved by it all. She prayed for us, we hugged and we left this situation reconciled. God reconciled us back together and it was a beautiful thing. I had a huge smile on my face and went to sleep in peace.
We are created to be in relationship with God and people, but we are susceptible to have separation from each other. We need to be on the watch and be intentional with our relationships. We need to fight to keep them. And if there is separation, we need to fight to bring them back together. Relationship is so important for us. I encourage you to look at your life and see if there is anyone you need to reconcile with. It may be a close friend. It may be an acquaintance. It may be a coworker. It may be a teammate. It may even be God. Whoever it is, fight to reconcile. It is always worth it!
