How often are we frustrated and angered by our brothers around us? By the broken promises, the hurtful words carelessly flung like gravel at our tender hearts and unfortunately in so many cases these days, the physical abuse they perpetrate to our defenseless person?
I reckon it is often, almost daily where the experience of most people in the world where we are tested in this area. Or maybe it is in realising that I want to be closer to the heart and will of God than most people around me could really be bothered to; and that in this I am an outcast so to speak, not really fitting in and pressured to conform to a worldly lifestyle you know cannot lead to God but still nevertheless be tempted to follow it.
Many people can relate a story in which someone really dear to their hearts let them down and never bothered to make amends or apologise and of how that has led to some sort of wound in their hearts from which they have been hard done to heal and recover and whenever I hear such stories, my heart just cries out for the wounded parties and for the restoration of relationships but amidst all this, I believe it necessary to throw in a reminder I believe we can all attest to having at one time or the other forgotten in the heat of a battle.
The people are not the enemy, nor will they ever be. It does not matter what they have done or what they are doing or saying right now but the Word declares that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers, principalities and princes of the air. All you see in the person who has hurt you or is hurting you or making your life difficult to live godly is a man deceived by the devil. The reality is we all desire joy, prosperity, to be happy and to live with the knowledge that we matter somehow to someone and all of this God desires and is willing and able to make abound to all of them that will lean on his heart for it.
All of us desire it, and God has made it all available through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but like the devil did with Eve in the garden, He still does today. He points beyond the boundaries that God has established to keep us in joy, love and peace and says that it is good and that God withholds it because He does not want us to be happy and have fun. And more often than not in so many ways, we look beyond the boundary and believe that what is outside is good. But like consuming the fruit brought death upon mankind, so will our venturing beyond the walls of God’s protection bring havoc in our lives, especially in the area of relationships.
And like in the case of Eve, she only sinned because she forgot she was made in God’s image, to live forever and to be in dominion over all the earth enjoying so much more of the other fruits in the garden, including the tree of life-so the same today, people live in sin, say hurtful words and do hurtful things because they have been deceived by the devil and they do not know who they are and whose they are.
So before you allow unforgiveness to creep into your heart and anger to fester within your soul, just lift up a word of prayer for them and remember their enemy is your enemy-you are both equally hated by the devil who seeks the destruction of you both and if you stay in anger, he wins. And if the pain of their actions or words still lingers, this is my prayer for you: That the Holy Spirit would come in to heal your heart, to comfort you and to bring restoration to the relationship that has been broken and that out of this trial would come a testimony of the goodness of God.
May the God of grace be with you always.