Pastor's Message
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So what am I getting to with all this guilt? Forgiveness.
In the Lord’s Prayer we ask that we would forgive others as we’ve been forgiven. Some days we need to pray that we would forgive ourselves as we’ve been forgiven.
For we have been forgiven. That’s the biggest, largest, loudest, greatest message of Easter. Jesus loves us, and because Jesus loves us, we receive forgiveness. We are forgiven and told to go out and try again.
Yes, we will probably make more mistakes. It happens. But I will tell you two things I’ve learned over the years.
1. For all the times we fail, we often succeed even more. We probably have more successes than failures…it’s just easier it seems to count the failures. [Think of Kevin Costner’s film, “The Guardian.”]
2. God forgives you.
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Have you ever had someone say to you, “Don’t beat yourself up over that?” It’s a friendly way of saying, “Don’t feel guilty about your failure.” The friend means well, but they are not the one feeling guilty. They are not the one who feels like a giant finger is pointing to us. They are not the one who wonders if our failure has resulted in damage that cannot be repaired.
Sometimes, when I’ve had a rough day or I’m just in one of those bad moods, past failures creep into my mind. All the negatives start to snowball into a heavy weight that threatens to crush any hope. We begin to feel that no matter what we do, it won’t work. Despair and doubt begin to gain control of us, and we begin to be unable to move forward.
I will tell you that I’ve made lots of mistakes. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything worthy of making the police blotter, but I have definitely hurt people. I don’t mean that I’ve intentionally done that, but still, I have ruined relationships. We probably all have. We say something at the wrong time. We use the wrong words. We simply make the wrong decision. We same something humorous, but it is taken offense at. We say nothing, and our silence gives the message that we don’t care. Or we simply forget something, and the other party things that we find them unimportant.
Even years later, we feel regret at the relationships we damaged. I remember my internship supervisor told me that no matter what you do, each year you will offend/upset at least five people in such a way that you lose that relationship forever. Gee, that makes me feel a lot better.
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