Ok it’s not original, Steven Covey said it first, but we live in a world that venerates Personality over Character today.

God puts Character first though.

Character develops over time. It is forged through experience and often hard knocks. Our decisions shape our characters. Personality is like a mask. We put it on as we leave the house and take it off as we get home. My GP refers to it as “Eleanor Rigby syndrome”.

There are examples of the Character vs Personality through Scripture. King Saul had Personality. David had Character. Pharaoh had Personality, Moses had Character.

Having Character doesn’t mean doing everything right. It means owning our decisions and choices. Saul tried to blame everyone else. He blamed Samuel for arriving late. He blamed the people for pressuring him. He passed the buck as far as he could, and it cost him everything. He was a Personality leader. The people admired him. He was tall, well built and good looking. He went out with the Prophets and spoke out for God. He led God’s people in battle.

David committed adultery with Bathsheba, then had her husband killed to hide his behaviour. Adultery. Murder. Yet God describes him as a Man after God’s Heart. Why? Because when the Prophet Nathan comes to David and faces him with his sin, David acknowledges it and repents. He throws himself down before God and weeps over his actions. He owned his choices. He lived up to his Character.

Moses started with Personality. He, Like Paul later, became Character. He owned up to his past mistakes and led the Exodus, risking his own life going before Pharaoh to deliver God’s message. After living as a Prince he commits murder and flees to the desert, where he allows God to shape his Character. On his return to Egypt his Personality has been rebuilt into Godly Character by spending time with God. Pharaoh on the other hand is self-obsessed and determined to be the embodiment of his petty-minded deification in Egyptian culture. Even when he summons Moses and Aaron to ask them to pray to get the frogs removed from Egypt, his pride and Personality get in the way. The land of Egypt is overrun by frogs and he summons Moses to ask God to remove them. When Moses asks him ‘And Moses said to Pharaoh, “Accept the honor of saying when I shall intercede for you, for your servants, and for your people, to destroy the frogs from you and your houses, that they may remain in the river only.”’ his response is driven by his personality – “So he said, “Tomorrow.” And he said, “Let it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God”. (Exodus 8:9 & 10).

Today we have nations led by Presidents and Prime Ministers who are elected on massive majorities, but their behaviour is less than admirable. They are modern Pharaohs. When faced with their crimes they try to hide by distraction. Then they use what has become known as “spin” to cover up and misrepresent the facts to distract the population from . Sex is redefined by Bill Clinton. Marriage by Jacob Zuma. The concept of Character was eclipsed by Personality. Robert Mugabe started with noble principles. His personality got him support initially, but after so long in power his Character has come through and he turned one of the wealthiest nations in Africa into one of the poorest. It remains to be seen what will happen in Egypt.

Leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Desmond Tutu all displayed Character in their leadership. They led by example and acknowledged their mistakes. They lived their character day in and day out (and still do in some cases).

Personality is selfish, Character is selfless. A Character leader seeks to serve, a Personality leader promotes himself.

Jesus and the disciples lived by Character. Paul started as a Personality, then God knocked him off his donkey and opened his eyes to the importance of Character. He humbled himself and although a leader in the Jews he went and sat to let God build his Character.

He still wants to do the same for us.

There’s a lot of negative stuff been bandied about regarding Christians and money. More experienced people than me have argued this subject and been put down for it. Less experienced have as well.

Young ministers are gently told by their listeners that they will learn the facts with experience. Older teachers are accused of being led astray by pride or greed or envy.

But scripture tells us there is a purpose to prosperity.

A purpose devised by God himself – to establish His Covenant with His People. “Establish” may be better interpreted as “prove”. Proof to the people who didn’t know Him. Proof to the Faithful of his goodness and provision.

“But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day” Deuteronomy 8:18 (Amplified)

Given this statement, what makes us think financial prosperity is bad? Yes, there are many corrupt people who are wealthy, but wealth and prosperity are not the same thing. Wealthy men can be owned completely by a spirit of Poverty. They are so money-focussed that they will do anything and everything to hold onto that money. Their drive is to preserve and gather for themselves.

A Prosperous man, conversely, gives. As a result, God places wealth into his hands for redistribution. He becomes a reservoir into which God pours a harvest of resources; financial, physical, whatever the area in which he is blessed. Sometimes it’s time. Sometimes it’s money. It may even be compassion. He prospers in all areas as a means of confirming the presence of God in his life.

Abraham knew God. Joseph knew God. David knew God. Their prosperity was in multiple areas. They walked with God. They used their relationship with God to draw others to God. Abraham became an entire nation. Joseph saved the greatest civilisation of the day. David gave the largest individual share to build the Temple completed by Solomon. Their prosperity, whilst ultimately financial in manifestation, was an expression of God’s presence and Covenant with them in their lives.

Somehow having money has become synonomous with being Godless. Whilst worshipping finances and seeking them for their own sake is clearly opposed to everything the Bible teaches, having financial wealth in and of itself is no more inherently evil than having nothing. Both cause issues for a believer’s life. Excess is not what God wants for us, but neither is lack.

Each believer must walk his path with God. We need finances to share the Gospel, and we need clothes and food to live. God knows this, and His prosperity manifests in our lives how we need it in order to demonstrate His covenant with us. He gives us power to create wealth, and allows us to ask so we may receive, but the asking must not be from selfish intentions, but simply and in faith – inspired by Him to do His work.

I had the priviledge of being at a wedding yesterday. My wife’s cousin married his fiancee and they have begun a journey that will change their lives forever.

It put me in mind of the changes that I’ve seen in the last ten years I’ve been with my wife, courting for a year, and married for a little over nine now.

I wouldn’t change my decision to ask her for anything. It’s not been the easiest option, but I’d not want to be anywhere else.

Together we’ve walked this amazing journey that has seen us encounter joy and pain, loss and heartache, happiness and tragedy. Most of all, however, we’ve lived with Hope, Love and Faith as our companions.

We’ve walked through fire – life-threatening illness for both of us – still an ongoing battle – financial prosperity and crushing loss from medical bills. Through it all, Jesus has supported us. The support has come in many forms from many places externally, but through it all there has been a constant theme within the relationship.

Not once have we both hit bottom at the same time. God has aways given one of us the strength to lift the other – even when we couldn’t see it until later.

It’s 18 months since our lives really changed forever in a way I won’t go into now, but in that time He’s brought new friends into our life together who have themselves experienced hardships. We’ve been able to live as a true fellowship.

There’s a unity between us. We are united not by our troubles, but by our Hope. Not by the hardships, but by Faith. Not by the bitterness of the past, but by Love carrying us forwards.

The writer to the Hebrews says not to abandon the gathering of the believers. More and more recently I’ve realised that isn’t necessarily a denominational church as such, but rather getting together and sharing our lives on an intimate level with a few close friends.

I’ve not been a regular attendee of a denominational church since I left Torquay in 2003. I’ve not given up meeting with believers though. Family and friends who are born-again who we share our Faith with, teaching one another and sharing testimony.

I went to a few denominational churches over the last few years. Even a few house groups. Good people in them, but I felt superfluous. I wasn’t necessary to the life of the organisation. It seems to me that the church isn’t meant to be an organisation as much as it is an organism. An organisation will continue if parts are missing without change or noticing. Cut a piece off an organism and it stops functioning the way it was designed to.

My fellowship is small right now, but I know the people in it intimately and I trust them enough to let them know me. There’s a unity between us. It defines us. There’s no mystery in it.

An acquaintance of mine recently published on his facebook status that he was one step closer to fulfilling his Bucket List.

There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, except it was the subject of his comment that made me start to think about it.

His Bucket List item was to see a rock group play live.

I thought about this for the last couple of days. It bothered me.

I have a bucket list. I didn’t think of it it those terms when I was younger, but it’s what it is. Places I want to go, things I want to do during my life. It never occurred to me to put a concert on the list.

My list includes seeing Everest with my own eyes, swimming on the Great Barrier Reef and exploring the Pyramids in Giza. I want to get a pilot’s license. I already saw Lions, Elephants & Rhino in their natural habitat, which was on the list.

The top of my list is simple. I want to raise a family, be a good father and loving husband to my wife and children.

My highest aspiration is to walk a closer walk with Christ. Daily.

To be so drawn into Him and His presence that I see through His eyes, feel with His heart, and do what He would do in my place. Heal the sick. Cast out Demons. Raise the dead.

I want to do what He did. To live my life wholeheartedly for God.

That’s the whole point, after all. To live – really live – we need to be one with Christ. Man fully alive and united with God through Christ more each day.

So every day I get closer to completing the only thing on my bucket list that really matters.

Over the last few years I have seen many of my friends and people I care about fall away from their beliefs in Christ. Almost without exception this has been when a storm has come into their life, and the scream goes out “how can God be real if this can happen to me?”

It amazes me that people can have this attitude.

If I take some time here I can list some, not all – that would take too much space, of the storms I have had to endure: my brother’s death, watching several members of my family succomb to assorted types of cancer, close friends dying in accidents, chronic illness, my own wife being seriously ill for over 2 years and almost dying 3 times as a direct result.

Psychologists produced a list many years ago of the most traumatic events a person can endure, and gave a corresponding figure to each one, the concept being that if you look at the table and add up the numbers of the events that it would give a total which would indicate the likelihood of depression and mental illness through stress if your total was above a certain number in the preceding 12 months. With a psychologist I went through this list and we stopped counting when my total was 3 times the figure for “highly probable” of a serious stress-induced mental disorder.

Clouds gathered over me, and I was buffetted by the storms in my life, but it never occurred to me that God may not exist.

The Bible clearly says we will experience problems in this world. Jesus says so in John’s Gospel. He spends 3 entire chapters talking about it, and how to deal with it (John 14, 15 and 16).

Yet so many professing to be Christians fall apart when adversity comes.

In the parable we generally call the parable of the sower, Jesus talks about the way people receive the seed. It would be more accurate to call it the parable of the soils, because the sower doesn’t change, neither does the seed.

The sower sows the seed, but the nature of the soil determines how it grows. Specifically, Jesus warns of people who hear the message, but although it grows in them, other issues either choke it or they never let it take a deep root so when troubles come they have no place to draw strength.

Over the course of my Christian life I’ve had some friends who have fallen at slight adversity, and some who make my life experiences look like a day at the beach with a picnic and yet have held fast, unwavering in their conviction.

There is a huge difference between going through adversity and choosing to stay there. I know victims of rape and child abuse who have gone both ways, drawing closer to God and running away from Him. Financial struggles have dogged some friends with the same effect.

This life is a fire. It melts us. As we move through, God turns up the heat to mould us to His shape, like a master sword-smith melting and welding to produce a blade that will be useful, enough spring to withstand battle but hard enough to hold a sharpened edge. The Japanese sword makers, the masters of their trade, only make a few swords each year so they can be certain the blades are perfect. They must have the correct blend of steel and the impurities need to be removed by fire.

God refines us the same way. We go through the fire and are melted. He removes things from us as the fire intensifies, and like a sword-smith adds carbon to strengthen the steel, he pours Himself into us to give us strength for the battle.

Life is a fire, and it will melt you. But to say because of adversity that God does not exist is like questioning the existence of the sun because of heavy cloud cover. Nobody in their right mind would do that, yet so many question God’s existence when faced with a Spiritual cloud.

There’s just no logic in that!

The last few weeks have been difficult, but I’ve seen love demonstrated in some amazing ways through them.

It’s hard to write about specifics, as the people involved are people I care about a great deal and I don’t want to break confidences.

I’ll start with a simple one.

My wife and I reached our ninth wedding anniversary this week. Over the nine years we’ve been married, and a little over ten we’ve known one another, we have been through some hard times. Sickness, brokenness, pain and loss have dogged us physically. We’ve had problems in these areas both pyhsically and mentally. We’ve both had to spend time in hospital where we nearly died. We separated briefly due to emotional brokenness, physical and mental pain has been a constant for us both and we have had loss, financial and personal.

Yet through this there’s always been something stronger. Love has carried us. Something beyond Human love had kept us together. God’s love has been demonstrated to us through our family and friends in spite of the circumstances we’ve faced. We’ve had love shown to us in ways beyond the wildest imaginings of our hopes. God’s love has been shown to us through incredible generosity. Support has been given us without holding back from places we’ve never imagined it would come from. Places we expected to find support it didn’t come. That’s not how God works. The unexpected is where God works. Walking on water, calming storms, feeding multitudes with a lunchbox. That’s what He offered us. That’s what we received.

I love my wife, she loves me, and we both love Christ more.

Two people I care about, probably more than they know, were assaulted in the last month. I wasn’t there. I heard about one through an email, and the other through prayer.

God told me how much He loves one friend, and reminded me how much I can love at the same time. I pray for my friends. In a little under 9 years I’ve not really had any revelations for any of them. This was different. God took me to a specific scripture not once, but 3 times as I prayed for this friend. He spelt out to me what had happened and how He wanted me to use the gift He gave me to help bring healing.

It takes courage to speak out sometimes. I was scared to, but when I did it was incredible. The friendship has been deepened, ties strengthened, and a deeper and more substantial love has been shown in all directions. My wife and I have been Blessed by this friendship more than can be written here. We’ve been given the opportunity to love and be loved in return. Love speaks in spite of fear. It works in spite of circumstance. It heals in spite of pain.

There are many ways I can speak of how God’s love has been shown to me, but it’s recently that I remembered, or more accurately was reminded, that He wants to show it through me as well.

I speak my mind. Sometimes to the point of being blunt. I have no time for petty office politics where senior managers seek to cover their own backs when things get a little uncomfortable. It probably hampers my professional growth in my current position. I’m not happy where I am, and I make no effort to hide it. I don’t care what other people think, which is a somewhat dangerous place to be, as it means I say things unexpected. I place a higher value on openness and honesty than promotion and job security. I will support my family and friends as needed because I know God will support me. I look to Him for guidance and wisdom. I seek out His people, but still the only living person whose opinion of me matters to me is my wife.

I’ll speak the truth as I understand it. Without apology, and as far as possible without exception. Life’s too short for anything else.

One final example of love for tonight.

I own my own business, and my wife works for me. We run it together, and the business is medical. She’s a doctor and I’m a businessman.

On Thursday, our anniversary, she tried to help a dog that was knocked down outside our home. In it’s pain it attacked her, biting her hands badly. Instead of a quiet evening together in front of the fire, she spent the day at hospital, having her hands treated and I had to leave my “other” job early to make sure she was ok. On Friday she saw a hand-surgeon to make sure there was no permanent damage because of the amount of pain she was in. I took her to the hospital, where she had to have rabies treatment injected into the wound-sites. Her hands were in agony.

Exhausted, we went home and tried to rest. At 11:30pm we got a call from a family concerned about the mother as she was having chest pain. Despite her own injuries, my wife got up and we went to the family’s home. She fought to save the lady’s life for half an hour, doing CPR with no regard to the aggravation to her own injuries. When it became apparent that her efforts were unsuccessful and the lady had passed away the most important thing became the lady’s dignity. Together we moved her from the floor back into her bed, made sure she was covered and looked as peaceful as possible, then called in the family and told them as gently as possible that the lady had passed away.

Love in action – concern for the family’s memory of their mother, ensuring her dignity to the last. Little gestures like covering her with a blanket and washing her face so her family would see her at peace and remember that, not the horror of watching CPR being performed.

My wife demonstrated God’s love to the family by ensuring they would have as little trauma as possible at that time. We couldn’t save the lady, but we could show love to the family, and respect to her.

Love is patient, kind, and does not seek to puff itself up. It’s hard being in a position where you have to love someone sacrificially. It’s harder not to boast about it.

God gave me opportunities to love and be loved in the last few weeks. He gave opportunities to all of us. Some we take, others we leave. Something He has shown me very clearly is that to receive Love as He would have us receive it, we need to give it as He would give it to us. Freely, honestly and generously.

I have been thinking a lot about the three things Paul focusses on at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 recently, namely Faith, Hope and Love.

I looked at Faith a few months ago, and then again more recently in Faith Revisited. Hope is something I also wrote about previously, and recently I’ve had cause to examine the concept again.

Faith is the substance of what we hope for.

Hope.

We have dreams and desires. The enemy of our souls seeks to rip those from us. He seeks to destroy hope. He prowls around like a hungry lion looking for it’s prey as Peter writes.

Our lives are full of hopes. We can only hold onto them if we choose to. God gives them to us and we can choose to keep them or leave them as life goes on.

My life has been complicated since I gave my life to Christ. God gave me visions and dreams which grew into hopes. From the day I began to hope in God’s way, the enemy has been trying to steal that hope.

Everyone goes through something like that as they get closer to God. I’ve been a Christian sine 1985. Hopes have come and grown, and the attacks trying to break them down have been relentless. I’ve seen it in my friends and loved ones too. They get a dream that becomes a hope, and before faith can manifest it into a reality the enemy deals a swift blow to tear it apart.

In my life I’ve had friends who have been through traumatic events whenever hope has come along. Sickness, assault and death have dogged their every step as they seek to move towards the hope set before them. Loss and pain have been fired at them, and me, in an attempt by the enemy to drive us away from God and the future and the hope He gives us.

And that’s the key.

God places the dreams into us. He causes the hope to grow, and gives us the faith to see it manifest. But the only way to overcome the attacks the enemy throws at us is to stand. Paul writes that we should stand wearing God’s armour – righteousness, faith, truth, salvation and the readiness to share the hope that is the Gospel.

In this world we will have troubles, but Jesus has overcome the world, and we can too if we lean on Him.

My future changed today. I go to bed a different man than when I woke up. My path is different than it was 12 hours ago, even 6 hours ago. We must be like the great ships of old in our life, constantly keeping our eyes fixed on the prize, and adjusting our course to stay on target.

Your future changed today, but your hope didn’t. It’s the Hope of Christ, built by the Faith of God for the future He calls you to.

And nothing the enemy throws at you can take it unless you choose to drop it.

By the standards I normally hold myself to, this entry is a ramble. Disjointed and almost discordant.  A very dear friend went through hell recently in their life. Another shared a part of mine and strengthened me. Opportunities came and went, but the end is still the same, and ten thousand years from now as we live with Christ – the ultimate Hope – nothing that happened today will really matter.

Maintaining hope require maintaining perspective. Good and bad happens in this world. But we are world overcomers by Christ.

Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians that 3 things are eternal. Faith, Hope and Love, Love being the greatest.

Faith is a concept we don’t hear about in the correct context often. Organisations with the word in their title exploit people’s needs and desires on a daily basis. So-called “faith” healers abound in a climate where desperation is a central part of daily life.

Not far from my home in Cape Town are numerous sub-economic areas. In these areas, the people are surrounded by others who are affluent. The sub-economic areas are surrounded by and border on not just affluent areas, but in some cases obscenely wealthy areas. The people living in them work in these areas, cleaning the houses, tending the gardens and washing the cars they can’t afford.

There is also a lot of crime. One area has recently had it postulated that the army should be used to police the area because the gangster activity is resulting in it being overrun by drugs and violence.

In these areas there is despair.

There is a “church” on every corner, usually boasting “faith” in it’s title.

The name of Faith is abused daily. Many, not all, but many of these organisations prey on the desperation of the areas. They promise health and prosperity financially if their particular organisation is supported.

Romans 10:17 says “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. These orgaisations, and I have heard more than one personally, spend a great deal of time prior to the offering plate being passed round. Their modus operandi is that of trying to convince the listeners to trust them by bombarding them with scripture about giving, tithing and that God will reimburse with added interest. Phrases such as ‘give and it will be given to you’ and ‘hundred-fold increase’ are bandied about just before inspirational music is played and the emotions are tugged on. The result is obvious. Poor people part with money, unscrupulous businessmen – I will not call them pastors – get wealthy, then one day the organisation is gone, and the people move on to the next organisation.

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Repeatedly. Hearing and hearing.

And hearing.

But the Word needs to be given accurately. Completely. Faith is not some abstract concept. It is a real and tangible thing. It is the substance of that we hope for, and the evidence of what we have not yet seen, according to Hebrews 11.

Faith is substance. It creates substance, translates it from the Spiritual world into the physical world.

God created everything we see in the physical world by speaking Faith-filled words. The Word. Even Jesus was spoken into existence – the “Word became flesh” as John puts it. All the Messianic prophecies spoken by the Old Testament prophets literally spoke Jesus into existence in this world. The spoken Word become Jesus’s physical flesh.

Our faith is a gift from God, a piece of Himself. He places it into us when we accept Him so we are able to accept Him. Our relationship with Him is based on Faith. His Faith. It makes us come alive. It gives us our hopes and dreams, our desires. The Faith we experience in our relationship with Christ gives us the dreams we need to live a Godly life. To trust Him. He gives us the desires of our hearts – not earthly wants, but His own desires for our lives. He allows us to dream His dreams, to see with His vision.

It all starts with Faith. And it ends with Faith. Faith endures as long as we hold on to it. We can choose to hold onto God’s Faith despite our circumstances, despite what is happening at this moment. We can choose to live with an Eternal Perspective as Paul did, not holding to this light affliction, lasting but a moment in the light of eternity. 

Faith is Eternal, everlasting. It always was and always will be there for us. We can pick it up and move with it any time. All we need to do is to look to Jesus. 

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author<sup class="crossreference" value="(D)”> and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross,<sup class="crossreference" value="(E)”> scorning its shame,<sup class="crossreference" value="(F)”> and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

The last few days have been interesting.

I work for Discovery Health at the moment. Generally I get one or two calls in a day where I can actually make a significant difference to their lives. Sometimes I even have a caller who says something that impacts mine.

On Monday this week (July 2nd) I was transferred to a new team in the call centre. My new Team Leader is a young woman who has been transferred in from Durban. It’s a smaller team, and there’s an intimacy that comes with that. Monday went well. Had a long talk with her and we hit it off well.

Tuesday was good too. I am feeling positive about the new team, and although I’d still like to move departments as I originally wanted, It’d be ok to stay where I am for now as well.

Yesterday was a bit different though. I set off for what I expected to be a normal day at the office and didn’t make it. As I was taking a corner near work, I hit first a painted arrow on the road, then a patch of oil, and finally a rumble strip designed to remind car drivers to slow down. Unfortunately, on a bike what happens is you begin to lose traction on damp road paint, it gets worse, and when you then hit the rumble strip, you lose all grip entirely.

So shortly after this I found myself lying face-down on tarmac, and counting my bones to make sure nothing was broken. Shoulder pain, rib pain, hip joint, split lip and seriously looking at my life from a somewhat different angle than normal.

I got up from the road and apologised to the nice man who I’d shouted at when he tried to take my helmet off. Six hours later I’d been x-rayed, ultrasounded and generally poked and prodded to find out what the problem was.

Apparently the problem was I had attacked a planet by throwing my body against it.

The planet won.

I’ve ridden motorbikes for some time now. I like the freedom of the wind on my face, so as I ride up this road I normally open my visor. This time I didn’t. No particular reason, I just didn’t. I always carry my cell phone in my left breast pocket in my leathers. Yesterday I didn’t. I put it in my jeans. I’ve been riding with my chin-strap loose for a while. Yesterday I just had a feeling I should tighten it properly.

Little nudges. Little hints.

I had a strange feeling in myself on the approach. As I got to the previous turn-off I felt like I should take it.

A nudge. A hint.

Ignored.

So now, my bike is stuck awaiting repairs. Arm in a sling, likely for about 6 weeks barring a miracle (which I actually do expect), and the rest of this week off work in more pain than I’d like, but already less than I expected.

I didn’t listen to all the nudges God sent me, but thankfully I heard enough of them. My helmet saved my life. Leaving the visor down saved my face. Protection.

God’s hints literally saved my life. Had I listened more carefully I’d have saved the bike as well.

He wants the best for His children. God is for us. On our side. guiding if we will only listen.

Andrew Wommack says you only run into the devil ad his work when you are moving against him.

God only gives us what we can handle. What we do with it is up to us. I expect to heal quickly – faster than the doctors predict. Meanwhile I’ll be reminded by the pain to listen.

God didn’t cause the accident. My own mistakes did that. God didn’t tear the tendons in my shoulder. Yesterday’s scans showed tears in two tendons. Today’s showed less damage to one and none to the other.

He gives us protection. What we need to do is listen.

I got a reminder this week. I was reminded of just how powerful I am in Christ.

I didn’t see the dead raised, or the blind see, or the lame walk.

Those are mighty works, but they are sirens to announce the real power.

Forgiveness.

It’s a small word, and not popular. People have a misconception of it’s meaning. We assume it means there are no longer consequences for those actions we’ve committed.

The real power in forgiveness is freedom. Not for the forgiven, but for the forgiver.

I’d forgotten long ago about some of the freedom I’ve received from forgiving in my heart the people over the years who have hurt me, either through ignorance, malice, youthful exuberence or unknowingly. The reminder came in the form of an unexpected contact from an individual I’d not heard from or given any thought to in over 20 years.

My brother was killed in an accident when I was young, and this boy reminded me of him. As a result, I took out my hurt and anger at the loss on him, attacking every time. I was a bully, just like some of the people who attacked me.

The contact was initiated by him, because he didn’t clearly remember who I was until we reconnected. Once he did, he immedtately recoiled away as the memory of the hurt I’d caused hit him like a slap across the face.

I don’t blame him.

I did, however, persue him – not because I felt I wanted his forgiveness for myself, but rather because of the obvious pain the memory caused him, I presume due to unforgiveness towards me.

This is an assumption based from my own experience. I carried a great deal of hurt with me for many years because the people I refused to forgive were, in my opinion, undeserving of forgiveness.

God gets to me sometimes. In my head the conversation will start with Him chatting to me like any friend. Then comes the kicker.

“David?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember that time when this happened to you and your response was to hold on?”
“What’s your point?”
“Let go.”
“Huh?” (I can be pretty dumb sometimes)
“Let go.”
“Like, forget about it?”
“No, let go.”
“Huh?”
“I can’t heal that part of you while you’re holding on to the unforgiveness towards the person who hurt you. Let go.”
“You mean, forgive then?”
Silence. (God lets me think about my latest dumb question.)

This goes on for a while, then I agree and make the decision to forgive.

That’s right, the decision.

Forgiveness, like true Love, is not an emotion primarily. It is a choice. We choose to forgive. After the passion of the endorphine rush of emotional love we choose true Love to make a relationship last.

We have to choose to forgive, even when we don’t feel like forgiving. The first time we forgive we usually don’t have a rush of warm feelings. The memory still burns in us, and we have to often re-visit the choice and make it again. And again.

And again.

Some of the people I disliked most in my youth I now correspond with regularly, and value their input in my life. Others are a work in progress. A few are labelled for review at a later time.

The point is, whenever I have reached the point of forgiveness it has left me feeling stronger and more complete. Closer to God even. Another brick in my defences is removed and replace with strength instead of imperviousness.

After corresponding for some time, there is now communication open between me and my victim – and I do not use the word lightly. My actions towards him were abhorrent to me as I am today. I asked his forgiveness, and apologised for the pain I caused him.

Why am I writing this? It’s not for self-promotion, certainly. Although I can see why some people whould assume it might be. I genuinely don’t care what most people think of me or what assumptions may be drawn regarding my motives.

I was humbled by the reaction to my apology. People have done less to me than I did to this person, and I have rejected their olive-branches. I am not a great man, but I have been forgiven by God through Christ.

His opinion of me and what I should do is what drives me now, sometimes through gritted teeth, to offer forgiveness as I can. Sometimes He asks and I say no. I carry the pain for longer than I need to because I refuse to just let go.

But ultimately, we all need to reach a point of strength where the only opinion that matters is His, and forgiveness comes easily from the heart, not because the offender deserves forgiving, but because the only person who actually gets hurt when we don’t is ourself.

Forgive. Love. It’s powerful, revolutionary and healing.