Personal growth is hard. I don’t care who you are, no one likes to grow. We like the idea, we like the result, but we don’t like the actual process. On this Race, I have been in a constant state of personal growth. First off, let me say “Praise the Lord!” I don’t want to be the same. I want to grow and learn and mature. But the process has not been easy or enjoyable (though I have to admit the scenery has been pretty amazing)! I am learning a lot about myself on this journey. Some things are good; some things not so good. God is using the people on my squad to show me areas of my life that need work, both in things that irritate me about them and things that irritate them about me.
In our community, you sign up to give a squad of strangers permission to speak into your life. You give them permission to tell you the hard truth. You give them permission to call you up into something greater. You give them permission to help make you a better person. It’s not easy and we don’t always react the way we should, but it is an amazing process. Imagine if you gave the people that you surround yourself with the permission to help you to actually grow and learn and mature. What would happen if you trusted your friends enough to allow them to tell you the truth instead of just telling you what you want to hear? We have the desire to grow, but not the courage or the character to actually institute the process with those we love most. Too often if someone has the courage to tell us the truth, we take offense at what they said, we hold that offense in our hearts allowing bitterness to set in, and from that point forward, our relationship with that person is tainted. This month, God opened my eyes to this in my own life.
A situation arose between me and one of my fellow Racers this past month. God used this situation to open my eyes to a hard reality in my own life. This individual had an offense against me and it seemed to me that no matter what I did, I only made the situation worse and added to the offense. The tension between the two of us rose to the point that I gave up. I no longer tried to reconcile. I no longer went out of my way for this individual. I felt that if I couldn’t do anything right, then I wouldn’t do anything at all. We reached a climax when this individual had enough courage and love for me to confront me on the issue. It wasn’t an easy conversation and we actually didn’t really resolve anything in that conversation, but the point was that we had the conversation. We loved and respected each other enough to speak what was on our hearts and how we felt. Then we took time to pray. During this time of prayer is when the Lord opened my eyes to a very hard reality. God showed me how easily offendable I have been in my past. I have taken the things that people have said to me too much to heart and allowed that to hurt me. Instead of giving that person the benefit of the doubt or believing the best of that person, I assumed the worst and took offense. Instead of forgiving that person for any past wrong behavior and moving forward in our relationship, I would take it to heart. I would allow it to hurt me and I would hang on to that hurt and allow bitterness to set up in my heart toward that person. Then, anything they did only added to that offense. Over time, these relationships would be lost and I would blame the other person instead of looking at myself and my offendability and bitterness. Then God showed me the other side of the coin. He reminded me how in my marriage when my ex-husband had offended and hurt me, my one and only desire was for him to pursue my heart and fight to get back in my life. He didn’t and now he is gone. This is what I was doing to my squadmate. I had given up and checked out. I wasn’t fighting to save my relationship with this person and I was loosing it. This broke my heart. First to realize how I had allowed Satan to work bitterness in my life through my offendability and thus destroy relationships. Second because I know what it feels like to be given up on and not fought for. I know how that hurts a person and only increases the feelings and insecurities that lead people to take offense so easily. I know how damaging it is and yet I was doing this to someone else. I wish I could tell you that I ran straight to this person and begged for forgiveness and all was forgotten and fairytale like. Sadly, I was too ashamed to go to that person. I was a coward, and I waited till they had the courage to come to me. We confessed our sin to each other. We shared what God had revealed about our sin during our time of prayer and we asked each other for forgiveness. We then acknowledged that we were still going to have to work on our relationship. Both of us were going to have to give a little. We had to start believing the best in each other. We had to start believing that we love each other and we are for each other. We have to allow each other to have bad days and not always react the way we should. We have to be brave enough to tell the other the truth when things land wrong with us. We have to be humble enough to accept the things the other has to say and ask the Lord to help us change. We have to forgive and start every day fresh and lay down any offense that may try to come between us. We have to resist Satan and forgive each other over and over again until our relationship is whole and life giving.
Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (ESV)
When I think of how the Lord has forgiven me, how He has loved me and pursued me no matter what, how He has been kind and patient toward me, I cannot fathom any excuse why I should not act this way towards my fellow brothers and sisters.
