Restart

So two posts ago (at least I think it was two), I mentioned that I felt that God was getting me to go back and fix up relationships.

This thwacked me so hard over the head last night at 1100. And when I say hard, I mean it startled me how spontaneous and trusting I became.

I have been reading through the bible… trying to do it all the way through. I am currently in Isaiah but I thought I would switch it up and read parts of the New Testament because I haven’t really read all of them myself before. I mean, I’ve read verses here and there and done bible studies on random selections, but I haven’t sat down with them, hi-liting things myself and really listening to what God was telling me.

I started on the flight home from Heathrow in February: I started with Colossians (which may be one of my favourite books, I must say) and have been jumping about, reading spontaneously. I picked up 1 John 4: 7-21 last night… do you know how when you’re tired, you tend to read the same thing over and over again?

I was doing that… only I wasn’t tired. It was just as if I didn’t get it; I would read through the paragraph, have a gut feeling that I was missing a really crucial part to the message, and would start again. It was frustrating because I ended up reading it a good solid 5-6 times before it actually struck me.

Then it clicked. I stared at verses 7 and 8 for a large chunk of time… I’m guessing close to 10 minutes… I was in awe; and all of a sudden, a wave of emotion came over me and I was struck from behind.

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love– so you can’t know him if you don’t love. [1 John 4:7-8]

A year and four months ago, I underwent a really rough time in my life that resulted in a lot of pain and negative feelings towards a guy. You’d probably be able to tell by reading my earlier posts, but as heart-wrenching and horrific as these events were, they helped me to become a better person.

Anyways, I read through this verse and I really think that God is pushing me to look back to this relationship– the togetherness that had failed because of so many circumstances. To begin with, I wanted nothing to do with him; my heart would tug and pull itself away from him, as if it was shying away from a white-hot poker.

I took this verse to heart and applied it to life. I know that sounds cheesy, but you have to look at what I’m saying before you judge; I don’t think that reading that segment in 1 John was an accident. The version of the bible that I do my personal devos in is in really basic, ‘high school’ language… during this dazed time when I just couldn’t understand the passage, I kept reading the word love over and over and over: actually I read it so much that it started to drive me nuts.

So once I did understand what it was saying, I gave it up to God; I trusted him in my situation, I surprisingly didn’t doubt him in what he had planned and leapt into the diving pool.

Then, with a quick prayer, I picked up my phone and texted the guy. All of the effort I had put to building up a wall against him came crashing as I asked if he would like to talk so that I may apologize.

I don’t generally consider myself a proud person– the very thought of vanity makes me roll my eyes in disgust (so much of the world and of human’s lives have been sacrificed to putting oneself further forward) but I really had to take my dignity down a few levels.

Saying that you are sorry is so difficult; especially when you don’t entirely want to, and when it deals with someone who you have both hurt and had hurt you, you can’t fathom a peaceful conversation, but you realize it is for the best. The daft bit is that you don’t realize the significance of your action until you see it literally right before your eyes.

Thats one of the problems with humans: we expect things to be so blatantly laid out. We expect that if we just read the bible and pray consistently that we will magically have a special connection with Him– but that’s only to a point.

‘Why do you ask me what is good?’ Jesus replied. ‘There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments’. [Matt 19:17]

He called us to obey his commandments. The ten commandments in Exodus 20 can basically be summarized up into two components: love God and love others.

Okay now this is the crazy cyclical part: we think that we are doing what God wants by praying and not killing others and the like, but if we aren’t able to obey his commandment of ‘love each other as I’ve loved you’ [John 15:12] we’re not really following God. Let me put this in cooking terms: you walk outside to your barbecue with every intention of cooking up a steak; you have fresh thyme and rosemary, malden sea salt and fresh ground cayenne pepper– all the potentials to make up something amazing, but you forget the meat. How can you eat baked beans and jacket potatoes without the steak?! (Not that steak is my favourite at all… I’d rather eat chicken, but I thought it was a fairly good analogy..)

He loves us. He wants a relationship with us. He wants us to be connected to him so that we are a part of the body that is set aside… to be the people we are called to be. How can we approach him with a totally clear conscience if we let the sun go down upon our anger?

I don’t want to be held back from Jesus– I want to approach him, all of me, holding nothing back.

I know that He forgives me, my goal is to get others to also.

My apology meeting is tomorrow at 1300. Please pray for me.