The Lord has used an experience I am going through to show me a deeper level of forgiveness than I have ever before felt or understood.
Recently, a person who is very close to me did something that I would never have suspected or conceived possible. The hurt that was created by this action is far deeper than I am able to bear on my own. Now nearly seven weeks after the event I am still living moment to moment and at times even find it difficult to breathe without the pain going to the very depths of my soul. Without God's presence and the assurance that somehow, somewhere He holds my future in His hand and has a plan for my life I would not be able to go on.
Since the incident other possible problems have been presented to me that could make this situation even more difficult to overcome, but to me the original act is still the most devastating, since without it the other problems could not have occurred.
In seeking help to deal with the problems and my reaction to them, I came to wonder how, even if this person were standing before me right now, honestly begging for my forgiveness, that I could forgive this person and reestablish the relationship. Let alone the idea that this relationship could grow into the full intent God would have for the situation.
There are all kinds of cliché things that could be said here about how we are supposed to forgive and I knew that this is what Jesus would do, but how could I say that I honestly forgive, how could I ever trust this person again even in simple ways.
This problem continued to work on me until last week when I had to drive about 14 hours away to get some things ready for winter. I left home about noon and as I drove into the evening the darkness seemed to close in on me and intensify the feelings of gloom and despair that I was already feeling. I kept playing christian music and attempted to sing along with the refrains to lift my spirits. I was also praying and trying to lay my problems before the Lord seeking His peace and guidance.
Up until this day, doing things of this nature had helped and would give me encouragement to go on and face the next moment, but as I drove I just seemed to fall lower and lower until I did not know how I could ever recover.
It was about one o'clock in the morning and in this extreme pit of depression that the Lord finally spoke to me. He showed me how much it hurts Him every time one of us turns our back on Him and goes our own way. He showed me that what I was feeling was so small as to be almost insignificant to the pain that He feels for all the wrongs that all of us have done against Him.
Then He showed me that not only was He willing to forgive each and every one of us for all of these wrongs if we were truly repentant but that he was also willing to give His life and die a horrible death even before any of us had even asked Him for forgiveness.
At this point it became clear to me that how could I withhold forgiveness from someone who was truly seeking it if I expected the Lord to forgive me for not only the things I have already done but also for the ways that I am sure that I will fail in the future, If He is willing to forgive me of all of the things I have done in my life and give me eternal life how could I even consider not forgiving someone else that He has already forgiven.
This was a very powerful moment for me, but it did not remove all of my despair. Then a song came on the tape player with the phrase "He holds my future and life is worth the living, just because He lives".
At this point there has been no resolution to my situation. It is still difficult for me to think about what I will do for the rest of the day, let alone what I will do tomorrow. But I do know that I can turn to Him and rely on Him for this minute. And minute by minute I go forward trusting Him for whatever the future holds.
May 18th, 2002
This update is long overdue. There are many things I would like to say, I'm just not sure how to put them all into words.
First of all, the Lord has restored my situation to better than it was before all of this started. I can only praise Him for all that He has been doing.
But before He was able to do this He needed to teach me a few things. One was a better understanding of forgiveness. The best way I can come up with to explain this is to look at the picture He gave us of how and what lengths He was willing to go to in forgiving us for our sins.
One of the things I stated in my original writing was that if a person was truly repentant for what they had done, then they could be forgiven. My question now is, how many of us were truly repentant and asking for God's forgiveness before He sent His Son to the Cross to die for our Forgiveness.
I, for one, had to be shown all of the wonderful things He had done for me and that He had been willing to forgive me for the sins He knew I would commit after I knew the truth, even before I had committed them. In other words, He forgave me while I was still sinning and in my sins and had no desire to repent.
He was willing to forgive me and offer me His Love even while I was in the midst of my sins and mad at the whole world and feeling like I was the only person who was right.
And here in lies the second problem. I was right. I could explain very succinctly why I was right. Being right was more important than the outcome.
Pride is a very difficult thing. Being right was and still is to some extent a part of and at the very core of my self. It was one thing to go along with someone else all the while knowing I was right (and usually letting at least one other person know this also), it is totally another issue to just let go, and not even think about who is right and who is wrong.
I do not have all the answers here but the Lord has been teaching me that sharing and being a part of each other, joining together in Love, is so much more powerful and rewarding than being right. In fact, the very idea of "being right" is what leads to the concept of "dead right". This is a very dead and very alone place to be. This is also at the core of what Paul and other's were trying to show us about the Law or Torah.
The Lord has used the past several years to teach me some things about the Torah. For one thing, the word used in the Old Testament for Assembly and the word used in the New Testament for Church are one and the same. The group referred to as the Assembly in the First part of the Bile is the same group referred to as the church in the last part of the Bible. The Bible is aimed at the same group the whole time, the true followers of God.
The whole first two thirds of the Bible show us that we can't follow God using legalism and rules. When we try to do this we quit seeking and depending on God. Instead we depend on our rules, on being right and wrong and we become dead right or else we take the attitude of some who say that they would rather live and enjoy life and go to hell than be dead to life and go to heaven.
But this is exactly the opposite of what God intends for us. He is offering us Life. Real Life right now to be enjoyed to the Fullest, on this Earth, in this Day and Age, not just in some far off eternity.
When we try to be right and follow the rules and do what we are supposed to do as "good Christians" we die. When we give up trying to be right, when we quit judging others by what we consider to be right and when we just open our selves up to follow Him where ever He leads us then we can truly live and we can truly enjoy living and the Life that He intended for us to have.
Let Him worry about what is right and what is wrong. Just follow Him and let Him take care of the details. He knows what the Spirit of the Law is and how to lead us in how we ought to walk. Our trying to define the Spirit of the Law into words is what leads to legalism. If I am walking with and abiding with the Lord then right and wrong is no longer an issue.
Another big concept tied up with the idea of being right is that I needed to make things work. The largest part of my job as a husband and father was to make sure that "all the things worked". What God has been showing me is that My job is To Follow Him it's His job to make things work.
This is not always the easiest thing to let go of. Ever since I can remember, with whatever is going on my mind is occupied with looking at the possibilities, examining the details and trying to figure out what is best to do and how to make things work. What I'm finding out is that the Lord wants me to just let go of all of this and enjoy the moment. One of the reasons I have not experienced all of the fullness and joy that He offers to us is that I have been far to busy all of my life trying to do His job instead of enjoying the thousands of little things going on all around me at the time.
David P. LaSelle
