Forgiveness...oh my!

This past Sunday Matthew preached a very meaningful and relevant sermon on the topic of Forgiveness.   I don't know about you, but I tend to get a bit squirmy during sermons of forgiveness.  I am more of a "conflict avoider" than one who likes to deal with it...in fact, in "fight or flight" I fly quickly in the other direction.  I would rather suffer with whatever emotions I am dealing with then to begin to face them or another person. Matthew is the exact opposite, he would rather deal with it, right now.  (Which has made for some interesting times in our household. hehe)  Unfortunately my preferred method of avoidance is not what God calls us to.  We are called to forgive and to live in love....which is not easy.


What is your preferred method of conflict resoloution?

Last week Matthew stated:

"Authentic community is built upon accountability, transparency and love, but it is maintained through forgiveness."

In order for us to become all that God has intended us to be we must have these characteristics.  We must not hide from each other, neither physically, spiritually or emotionally.  We must accept responsibility for our own actions.  In teaching, one of the hardest things for students to do is to own up to their own actions.  They fear the consequences, however, with proper instruction they realize that owning up to their mistakes doesn't make the consequences go away, but definitely makes them less severe.  For adults, owning up to our mistakes means that we have to admit that we were wrong.  That hurts the ol' ego...which is far worse than any consequence.  We must learn to move past ourselves to allow ourselves to become all that God wants us to be.
We must be transparent.  People need to know what we are feeling...we must communicate our emotions, anger, fear and joy.   As the extreme introvert mentioned in the sermon, my vulnerable emotions are reserved only for those most intimate friends/family.  Transparency is extremely difficult.  In order for us to heal and grow, we must take that difficult step of faith and share ourselves with all of those in our community.  Now, please let me clarify...this does not mean that you need to share your innermost thoughts with every person in the church, however we do need to be transparent in issues relating to the church, including relationships.  If you are harboring feelings of anger, sadness or guilt, those need to be addressed and resolved.
Lastly, we must love.  To love means that we share those emotions that are holding us back and we must resolve those conflicts.  We must forgive those who have hurt us, and accept forgiveness from others.  We must not hold on to those negative feelings.  When you hold on to anger and resentment, the one who is suffering is you.  By holding onto that anger and never resolving those feelings, you become prisoner to those emotions.  We think that we are making the other person suffer by withholding our friendship...but it is us who misses out.

Our goal is to make our community as authentic as it can be so that we may grown in Christ and grow in numbers.  In order to do that we must have those tough conversations and show much forgiveness and love.

What conflicts are still weighing on your heart?
Do any of them keep you up at night?
What is ONE step you can take to begin healing?
When are you going to take that step?

~Jennifer