MENDING THE BROKEN

Sometimes we do the incomprehensible. We cross lines and break boundaries that do so much damage that a simple "I'm sorry" or "forgive me" just won't fix. I know… I’ve done it.

Since humility is not our natural modus operandi, more often than not we are prone to defending ourselves and deflecting what we ourselves need to take ownership of, all the while missing the most important thing of all, that the person we have hurt is hurting way beyond what we could ever have imagined, leaving them to drown in their anguish and pain by being self-focused and defensive.

We need to learn to be silent… to listen. It is one of the most important and powerful postures we could ever take as it allows the one whose heart we have broken to state their deepest pain. It allows us to not only hear, but also feel exactly what it is we have done, and how it has left them where they are, and why a chasm now exists. It is imperative for the one who offends to allow the depth of what they have caused to resonate deep and loud within their hearts. To experience the magnitude of the damage they have caused, as though it had been done to them. I call it “suffering identification” and is exactly what Jesus did when He laid down His deity so that He could be “tempted in all thing as we are tempted”. When we hurt someone, the only way we can bring a healing to those wounds is by getting down into them so that we understand our need to repent and repair. That takes humility. That is full engagement.

Repentance is a gift. It comes through our willingness to humble ourselves and come face to face with, and experience the depth of our own depravity and desperate need. With God, it heals our separation and delivers us from our deserved punishment by releasing His forgiveness, mercy and grace. Between two people, it opens the opportunity to restore what has been broken through making right choices and commitments that reflect love, honor and respect. It manifests itself in deep remorsefulness with an intense desire to make things right, to make amends and to never cross those lines again. It also allows God into the process with us; which is His greatest joy. True repentance reveals we understand that it is never about us, but that others are more important than we are ourselves.

Though we all sin, for the one who is willing to renounce and turn from their ways and make amends, who consciously and willingly wants to change… there should ALWAYS BE, and without reservation, forgiveness, grace and mercy. That is love. After all, real love is patient and kind; it doesn't hold onto a wrong suffered against it. It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.. REAL LOVE never fails! God told Israel, “If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.” If that is Heaven’s response to a nation that had become apostate and lost in idolatry and abominations, how much more should it be ours? There is no greater picture of real love.

© 2012 Steven Bliss
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