For the last six months, pursuing forgiveness to bring healing into my life - particularly in a Christian way - has been a big focus of mine. It revolves around a specific situation that I am not at liberty speak of in detail.
Today I thought I had made a small step toward not just forgiveness but reconciliation in this situation, only to find later that my future actions were already pre-judged to turn out the same as my past actions despite active attempts made on my part in the last six months in a variety of ways (counseling, training, reading books) to explore potentially better ways to handle the same situations.
It's days like today I need to remind myself of parables, some of the strongest uses of creative words to make points about biblical truth. Though told orally to the crowds, they were also transcribed for future generations.
Today my thoughts turned to the parable of the unmerciful servant (see Matthew 18), where Peter asks Jesus how many times to forgive his brother - "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'" (Matthew 18:22, NIV).
He then goes on in Matthew 18 to illustrate the point by telling the story of how one servant who owed money begged his master to be patient with him, then turned around and tried by force to get the money out of another man who owed him. When the fellow servant refuses, he is punished by being thrown in prison and the other servants tell the master. The master punishes the servant for not having mercy and turns him over the jailors for torture until he pays back what he owes. The point is that God wants each of us to forgive from our hearts with mercy repeatedly, or God will not be happy with us, just like the misbehaving servant.
It's written better in the Bible, and I encourage you to read it there. I don't want to be so creative as to trump a well-written parable.
As to myself, what I have to keep reminding myself is that it is important to work on forgiving over and over, even if reconciliation never happens. It is possible to forgive without reconciliation. Forgiveness is understanding the issue but not necessarily condoning the action, but the latter concept of reconciliation is trying to bring things back together. That is why it is possible to forgive multiple times over... but you're not required to forget. In fact, if we forget, we can't learn from past mistakes. That's what I believe anyway.
I'm not so sure God has reconciliation on the horizon for me on this one, but the hard part is keeping faith while managing expectations. A tough thing to juggle.
Showing posts with label scripture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scripture. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, October 27, 2008
Inspired By the Word
INSPIRED BY THE WORD
Bringing the Word to Our Words
Using the Bible’s Truths to Strengthen Personal Creative Writing
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INSPIRED BY THE WORD
The Holy Bible, also called the Word of God, collects the writings of early servants of the faith to bring its principles and truths into a single volume to hand down through generations. Today, there are writers among Christian believers, who have talents such as those of earlier times but while today’s Christian’s may not be called on to write words with the same level of impact as the Word, they still can use words for bringing the teachings of Jesus to the world.
The question arises for some as to what defines Christian writing, in particular Christian fiction writing. Some people feel that unless they are direct mention or hints at phrases of scripture, then the work isn’t Christian writing. Others say as long as characters exhibit Christian principles or are instructing other characters in Christian ways (whether blatantly or not) then that fits the definition.
Ultimately, this definition in the end seems to fall on a very personal level, just as each Christian has a personal walk with Christ. Also, for a Christian writer, it depends on what Christ leads that Christian to write about as to what will “feel” Christian to him or her.
When scripture references do appear in writing, the key is not to make scripture or tenants of Christian faith feel forced or preachy in any work. The elements should naturally flow from and on the page. A piece of writing must first and foremost be a solid piece of writing, as non-believers are far less likely to follow the message if the story itself is not engaging and credible enough for them.
That said, we should always turn to scripture to daily enrich ourselves as Christians – which in our busy world can be hard to do and I confess is still a struggle for me. In turn this should enrich us as we approach our daily walk in life and filter down without effort to our writing.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES TO CHALLENGE YOU:
1) Read and reflect on James 1:5-7. What attitude should we have as Christians turning to God according to James? How can this apply to writers?
2) Look at 1 John 1: 15-17. John speaks about not loving the world or anything in it. How do Christian writers struggle with needing to understand the world while not being of the world in order to be relevant? Have you struggled with a personal experience about this? Pray or journal about it.
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CREATIVE WORDS TO SPREAD THE WORD
Coordinator: Shannon Muir
email: creativewordstospreadtheword@gmail.com
BROCHURE #9
Last revised: October 2008
Brochure text by
Shannon Muir
Original Artwork on Printed Version by
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
[The above is a modified Internet transcription of the text of a print brochure originally released by Creative The Words to Spread the Word. This transcription released by Creative Words to Spread the Word. All rights reserved.]
Bringing the Word to Our Words
Using the Bible’s Truths to Strengthen Personal Creative Writing
---
INSPIRED BY THE WORD
The Holy Bible, also called the Word of God, collects the writings of early servants of the faith to bring its principles and truths into a single volume to hand down through generations. Today, there are writers among Christian believers, who have talents such as those of earlier times but while today’s Christian’s may not be called on to write words with the same level of impact as the Word, they still can use words for bringing the teachings of Jesus to the world.
The question arises for some as to what defines Christian writing, in particular Christian fiction writing. Some people feel that unless they are direct mention or hints at phrases of scripture, then the work isn’t Christian writing. Others say as long as characters exhibit Christian principles or are instructing other characters in Christian ways (whether blatantly or not) then that fits the definition.
Ultimately, this definition in the end seems to fall on a very personal level, just as each Christian has a personal walk with Christ. Also, for a Christian writer, it depends on what Christ leads that Christian to write about as to what will “feel” Christian to him or her.
When scripture references do appear in writing, the key is not to make scripture or tenants of Christian faith feel forced or preachy in any work. The elements should naturally flow from and on the page. A piece of writing must first and foremost be a solid piece of writing, as non-believers are far less likely to follow the message if the story itself is not engaging and credible enough for them.
That said, we should always turn to scripture to daily enrich ourselves as Christians – which in our busy world can be hard to do and I confess is still a struggle for me. In turn this should enrich us as we approach our daily walk in life and filter down without effort to our writing.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES TO CHALLENGE YOU:
1) Read and reflect on James 1:5-7. What attitude should we have as Christians turning to God according to James? How can this apply to writers?
2) Look at 1 John 1: 15-17. John speaks about not loving the world or anything in it. How do Christian writers struggle with needing to understand the world while not being of the world in order to be relevant? Have you struggled with a personal experience about this? Pray or journal about it.
---
CREATIVE WORDS TO SPREAD THE WORD
Coordinator: Shannon Muir
email: creativewordstospreadtheword@gmail.com
BROCHURE #9
Last revised: October 2008
Brochure text by
Shannon Muir
Original Artwork on Printed Version by
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
[The above is a modified Internet transcription of the text of a print brochure originally released by Creative The Words to Spread the Word. This transcription released by Creative Words to Spread the Word. All rights reserved.]
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