Relationship Expectations Kill Forgiveness

The higher the pedestal we place people on the further they fall in our estimation. This hurts both them and us; them, because they have no recourse to remedy when they’ve disappointed us; and us, because we keep at arm’s length the powers of forgiveness we could otherwise access.

The extremes of relationship expectations occur like that akin to borderline personality disorder, where there are fine lines between love and hate. Where we love a pastor or Christian leader, for instance, I mean to the point of holy deference, we risk sliding into loathing when they fail us. And they will. The point is, our expectations will place them in a position where they must fail us; they cannot possibly live up to the heights we decree them.

The solution is this: remember that despite any person’s competence and character, they, like we, are sinners in need of saving. They need Jesus as much as we do.

Putting anyone atop a pedestal is fraught with danger, even if those we place there have definitive responsibilities of leadership. Consider that they may not be perceived to have failed these leadership responsibilities, even if we think they have. Where does that leave us, if we think someone has failed us, but others think nothing of it?

It is easier to plan for the fact that people fail us. The higher we estimate a person’s worth, the worse we feel when they fail to meet that standard. This is not their problem. It’s ours.

When relationship expectations reach unreasonable heights, forgiveness becomes harder than ever. When the lofty have fallen, there is no recourse to forgive them.

It’s better not to put them in that position of power over us. Besides the accountability others have in the roles given to them, let us allow them to be fallible.

Nothing Makes Faith Right More Than a Right Heart

Jousting with the Pharisees, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4 NIV) Earlier in verse 2, having seen the faith of a paralysed man’s friends, Jesus commends this man whom He heals to “take heart…”

One word, two contexts.

In the former, the heart is the source of pride, malice, envy, whereas in the latter, the heart is to be a source for courage. Jesus sees the wretched heart (the seat of the emotions) beating within the Pharisees, just as He sees the heart (the courage) the paralytic man would need to live healed and whole.

A heart is something we nurture. Malice or courage?

The heart is something that connects us to faith, biblically, from Genesis onwards. The faith of Abraham was the sole basis for his right relationship with God. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else matters, ever. Nothing we can add to faith improves faith, for faith is about the heart.

A godly heart is what underpins faith.

Faith is founded on a loving heart open to hope.

If our hearts are rotten through, and they tend to be, if we’re honest about the way we think and feel, we have only one recourse to God — to surrender our heart before Him.

The biblical paradox is this: where we think our hearts are good, we’re on the verge of being a Pharisee, but where we suspect our heart carries evil, God makes us aware, and as we repent, we surrender and in that He changes our heart. And to repent takes courage: heart. The Pharisee’s heart cannot see beyond their own ‘virtue’, but a godly person trusts in the virtue of God, and are led in that way, away from their folly.

One virtue is founded on self-reliance;
the other virtue is built on God-reliance.

One requires no faith at all,
whereas God-reliance requires faith.

Faith is the process of surrendering our heart to God. Only by giving our heart to God are we able to please Him. Nothing else that we do ever counts.

Here is the key test of the heart: how we treat all others. If anyone would be excluded, favoured, segregated, privileged then we have a heart problem.

Big hearts. Jesus wants big, cross-shaped hearts. Hearts that reject temptations to envy, malice and pride. Hearts that beat to the rhythm of love through acts of faith. Hearts that leap otherwise at the opportunity to love through inclusion, acceptance, kindness and compassion.

It takes courage to live by faith; the courage of taking heart. A right heart makes faith right.

19 Things God Taught Me In My Handyman Job Today

Re-fixing one hundred ceiling panels, necessitating four-hundred ladder ascensions, and God begins to speak:

1.          Everything needs maintenance. That means nothing is ever really finished. If that frustrates or bores us, we have some learning (and accepting) still to do.

2.          Precision counts. Put your finger on the right place; your eye and ear on what is to be seen and heard.  Timing can be poignant.

3.          Balance is fundamental. Game over if you lose balance.

4.          Persist. Then, when you’re ready to give up once more, persist. Then repeat the procedure whenever necessary.

5.          Rest. But only in two situations. When satisfaction earns us a rest, or when we are exasperated.

6.          Smile. Always smile. The only thing we ever have control over is our attitude.

7.          Don’t be daunted by the size of the task ahead. Start the work, set your mind on the things above, and ask God to bless every second of your work for Him.[1] And He will. Too much of the time we defeat ourselves mentally before we start.

8.          Find God’s delight for you in your moment.  It’s not somebody else’s delight any other time.  It’s ours, now.  Reflect and discover. Experience the miracle of life in your work.

9.          Success teaches confidence, yet success is a commodity available only at the market place of achievement. So achieve. Work like the ant does.[2]

10.       What you do is mastery of a mystery to many people because they don’t watch the process. Everything observable is explainable, and everything explainable unravels a mystery. Enjoy being a mystery.

11.       Someone is watching. It only appears that nobody notices a lot of our work. But there is One who watches all things at all times.

12.       Try, and then become convinced of something you could never have before anticipated. These are pleasant blessings of learning.

13.       There’s always something to be learned beyond the frustration and struggle. Learning encourages us. Yet we only get there by faith.

14.       Nobody can tell a maintenance worker he or she isn’t worthy. Everyone is worthy. And not because of what anyone does!

15.       Diligence is commitment, and commitment is blessed when there is work to do.

16.       If one way of doing things is cut off, ingenuity will supply another. Don’t panic; the solution will come when we’re patient.

17.       Be body-mind-and-soul conscious. Feedback comes and awareness is a blessing. Wisdom will ward off injury.

18.       Clean up as you go. Less chaos cognitively.

19.       Never believe you’re doing menial work.  You’re not.  It’s all important.

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[1] See Colossians 3:2; 3:23.

[2] See Proverbs 6:6-8; 30:25.

Understanding Why Forgiveness is So Misunderstood

Biology and physiology, experience, culture, and beliefs, in the way that they differ from one person to another, produce within each person unique perspectives, such that even brothers and sisters, parents and children, very often do not and cannot see eye to eye.

We all see things differently.

The reason we find it so hard to forgive people is we misunderstand, by underestimation, how much people see differently to us. They saw the events that took place differently, i.e. from their own perspective, and they now see the relationship differently. They see us as the problem, just as we see them being the problem.

No wonder we wrestle
for months or years,
never seeming to get
anywhere in reconciliation.

If we can acknowledge those we’re in conflict with see differently, and trust God enough to know that what they see is their truth, we can understand how the conflict developed and ensues — for them. Then, as our understanding develops, not only are we able to forgive, our sense of understanding can translate into peaceable love, which permeates the relationship, and our forgiveness can influence theirs — in time.

Seeing is understanding.

Understanding that they see differently helps us understand we see differently. Different viewpoints create misunderstanding, and it is likely that both of us see ‘truths’ the other cannot see. It can help a great deal to know they could be just as, if not more, frustrated as we are.

So, whilst we may try to forgive, we may fail because of what we misunderstand: they see differently compared with how we do, which explains the impasse and how the impasse developed in the first place.

Understanding misunderstanding is going back
and investigating the cause — from both viewpoints.

Where we cannot see, there’s scant empathy, intimacy’s scarce, and commitment dries up. And when commitment fails, so does the relationship, because forgiveness depends on commitment. If we challenge our vision to see differently, then empathy, intimacy, and commitment are restored, and forgiveness is possible.

May God truly bless you as you open the eyes of your heart to see differently,

Steve Wickham.

Looking Forward From the Past

The whole of life is meant to be lived from a whole-of-life perspective; all facets of life — including all the broken bits — considered as unifying in the oneness of us as persons.

This, surely, is what Jesus had in mind as He delivered the Abundant Life edict, as recorded in John’s Gospel. Jesus invited us into a worship which is by the Spirit, in the truth. That worship is the Abundant Life.

The Abundant Life takes all a life, inclusive especially of the ugly events, and gives us the capacity to build meaning for the present so we can experience hope for the future.

We’re neither our pasts, nor are we one of many fabrications of the future. The Abundant Life is neither the lies of past, nor is it one of many dreamy vanities of the future.

We’re only what we possess in the present; acceptance of which is the goal of the Abundant Life. And if the past informs us to accept what’s gone, for the resilience to endure that we’ve shown, matched with God’s faithfulness in carrying us, then we have hope indeed.

An irrepressible hope is the Abundant Life. Such a presence may exist despite all outward appearances. It’s all a matter of the heart. And only God matters, there.

The murky past reconciled is a proof-text for a hopeful future, and the present experience is the Abundant Life. It doesn’t matter how murky the past was.

Looking forward from the past allows sight for a reliable present where future endeavours are focused through a lens of truth.

Looking forward from the past is not about being stuck in the past. It’s much more the acceptance of those seasons of life as part of the foundations of our overall life. Our past has informed us of what we wish to live for. Only when we’ve reconciled those seasons past can we step forward into the present experience of the Abundant Life. History will prove us blessed as we look back, a whole life lived.

So, the past is our ally; it is something with which to face and ponder and accept, even celebrate; especially victories, which are borne on the wings of defeats. Besides trauma that complicates reconciling the past, all reconciliation is achievable. And reconciliation — all of it — too, is the Abundant Life.

May God truly bless you as you plumb the accessible depths and ascend the climbable heights of the Abundant Life God has for you!

Steve Wickham.

The Friend We Need When Forgiveness Is Foreign

NATURAL to our instincts… forgiveness certainly is not. In a recent survey of over five-thousand, more people said it was easier to hold a grudge than forgive. That speaks to much of our experience.

None of us finds forgiveness easy for the pure fact that the stakes are irretrievably high.

Wherever there’s the challenge to forgive there’s loss.

Grieving loss is about reconciliation.

Forgiveness gets us along the way to reconciliation, and faith is the friend we need.

So, faith helps us forgive, forgiveness helps reconciliation, which helps us grieve loss.

Losses take us into a foreign land far from the central knowledge we have of ourselves. Loss affects us at the level of our core values. None of us expects life to be so harsh as to land us in a place of no return. Our core values involve the assumption that we’ll always be safe. And loss takes us distally out atop the choppy wash far from the shore which is safe land.

To forgive is to lose. But we cannot win unless we forgive. Wisdom decrees we must endure loss to experience victory.

Loss is that place of no return where a new normal we never wanted to begin with must be engineered and procured.

So, if we accept that forgiveness is an inherent part of reconciling loss — and there are possibly many threads to reconcile — and we accept that forgiveness is foreign — we have a head start in at least acknowledging how hard things actually are.

Forgiveness, it has to be said, is interminably hard.

It’s a miracle to actually achieve forgiveness; an outcome of God’s grace bestowed. But, when it’s achieved, forgiveness is a vital command post for reconciliation. We have an important vantage point for reconciling our inner discord, then the relationship, and for forging a new way of life.

Reconciliation starts when we have forgiven.

And faith is no substitute as a friend who helps when forgiveness is foreign.

Faith is no generalised concept. It’s a real action-oriented vestibule of hope and love. Faith blends hope for a better future with love that compels a present action.

When life’s hard and seemingly impossible at times, for the gravity of loss is starker than we ever thought pain could be, faith is the risk we have to take. Faith generates hope, but faith also sows in hope. And hope fuels faith. Love is an output of faith.

***

We take such a risk of faith only on a stronger day.

A weaker day in loss makes grief insurmountable. Days like this we’re gentle with ourselves.

But stronger days are days to advance the vision for what could be — a future we might hope for, but probably cannot yet see.

Wisdom is in picking the right day.

Knowing forgiveness is hard helps us not force the pace beyond God’s will. God will heal us, but forgiveness is a process, and sometimes it can take years. We learn to praise God when forgiveness comes easier, which is always a miracle of God’s grace; a thing we can no easier explain than simply experience.

Safety in forgiveness is not fighting our feelings, but being gently inquisitive of our struggles, whilst being willing to push ahead when it comes easier.

What a wonderful thing to be inspired to forgive. We need to make the most of those God-indwelled moments. Suddenly there’s the moment of humility to call things for what they are; those things we can take some direct responsibility for. Taking responsibility is receiving blessing.

Forgiveness is foreign to our nature, but, when we adopt God’s nature, forgiveness becomes natural and healing.

Progress is about reconciliation, as forgiveness, which requires humility, which is honesty.

Faith is the friend we need when forgiveness is foreign.

Faith will get us to forgive when every other ‘friend’ makes forgiveness foreign.

The Way You Might Live If You Had Just ONE Day

Imagine it was your final day alive. Only you knew it. You knew also that where you were going was worth departing for. You also knew that feeling overwhelming sadness would be a waste of your final twenty-four hours. So what would you do?

Perhaps you would not be bothered about politics, fashion, television, the News. These would fade from your mind’s sight, as you thought more about things at home.

Maybe you might not care so much about that degree or that PB or the career you tirelessly pander after. Or possibly you see the need to take time out to just breathe — as you breathe your last seventeen thousand breaths.

Think on this. We assume we’ll be here for ages, even lamenting many aspects of our lives, even as we take for granted the many moments we’re given to love those we love.

Life is enriched to an abundance of purpose when we comprehend The Day (to-day) which the Lord has made.

The cycle of the cosmos seems to endure as clockwork. But our lives, though they seem to mirror life, are not like that.

None of us knows what is coming, just as none of us can predict what is coming.

All we can do is live lives that exemplify the art of goodness in time. To take the breaths we do have, and make of that oxygen fuel for thoughts and actions that make a difference in the sphere of our influence. Nothing else matters.

May God truly bless you as you ponder more days as your last here on God’s earth,

Steve Wickham.

Waves of Light as Memories of Babies Lost

Nathanael’s Butterfly

“In denying my pain, I’d be denying my love.”

— Malory

For Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

As I pondered thoughts of time two years ago, in going through Nathanael’s few possessions, including the cards of condolence we received at his funeral, the Lord indicated — this one. One particular card. Then, on opening it, out sprung some words from Psalm 31. Parts of the psalm speak of a time when God saw us in our pain, gave us room to breathe, and in our anguish, per the people’s prayers, He showered us with kindness. Oh the depths of pain that we’re called to endure — in cultivating healing, by tenuously avoiding denial and cynicism.

In surrender for healing is the experience of His Presence through the grace felt of kindness.

Grief is the child of love, and love, like any dutiful parent, bears what grief brings. It has no choice. Love can and would do nothing else. So love is torn. Love is costly. But, above all, love is strong for the task of faith, and faith gets love through grief.

Loss is what all parents must interminably prepare for, and I don’t simply mean parent by definition, but by function — anything we have custodianship for. Life is about loss. We don’t notice the good things we receive, but when they’re taken from us, then we’re cataclysmically forlorn.

Waves of light are what any bereaved parent can give in remembrance for the infant they lost.

Waves of light, as in a candle flickering in the waft, as it responds to the physicality of its environment; as visible now, but only as energy for the sustained moment, where fuel is available for combustion to keep that light bright.

The fragrance of bottlebrush is pungent in springtime right now. Today. They permeate our residence. They remind us that he is still here with us; alive in our memory and in our eternal hope.

If only as we embrace the aroma of flowers, we recognise the goodness in a memory.

Memories are the gift given to love to compensate for the grief of loss.

May God truly bless you by the unfathomable peace of His Presence in the experience of the reality of loss,

Steve Wickham.

PS. Malory can be found at http://butterflyfootprintsblog.blogspot.com.au/

Want Some Spirituality with Your Potatoes and Carrots?

I love my work for the fact that whilst I’m on the road, delivering meals to very vulnerable people, listening to some didactic radio, God speaks. He always speaks. And He gives me some wonderful opportunities in the interactions I have with the fifty or so clients I deliver to. I have the privilege of serving all these people, and my few minutes of ‘pastoral care’ makes much of a difference to some.

With one particular person I’ve developed a rapport. This person is in their late eighties, has had many health and medical issues and trials to contend with, and happens to have a very strict diet. And I could tell straight away that this person values their spirituality.

Over the fifteen (or so) occasions I’ve delivered to this person, every interaction’s been different, and every contact has been remarkable. Some occasions we’ve talked about the weather, other times I’ve listened to a passionate complaint about our service, once I prayed a blessing over the home, and another time I listened for a few minutes more than normal because there were tears. Pain is something that this person bears constantly. We have both had cause to apologise, and still I have cause to thank this person for their grace — for what they can muster, in their interactions with me, given the challenges they face. What we have had is real spiritual contact through perhaps little more than one hour overall together.

I praise God that I have found myself in work that has had more than its share of spiritual blessing; that I’ve been surprised by it. It’s hard work, no doubt. There are many tests and frustrations being out on the road, managing the shifting sands of details and customers and meal orders that change, and the like. And sometimes I’ve given in to those frustrations and cussed like a demon. Yet God knows these tests have been good for me. I’ve been pushed to a place where my resilience has been defeated many times, and, in that, my resilience has improved.

The person I discuss serving here is the epitome of the diversity of the work. I’m very thankful that I can offer some welcome spirituality with their potatoes and carrots. I never thought that the spirituality of caring concern could be vital in this work. The truth is that the spirituality of caring concern is vital everywhere, even when the core work is meals delivered with potatoes and carrots.

With God, watch for the wonder in the banal. God ‘shows up’ in the everyday more than anywhere else in life. The Lord works best in the boring.

May God truly bless you as you see the wonders of God working in the mundane,

Steve Wickham.

You May Care, But Do You Care Enough to Be Kind?

“If you wish to know the mind of a person, listen to their words.
If you want to know their heart, watch their actions.”

— Lisa Prosen

Recently, a person I’ve mentored sent me a note on an anniversary of a particularly painful event in their life. Their times have now equalised, and it is apt to praise God. Suffering endured, resilience shown, support received. And it was to this support that was connected kindness — care. I shared the note with my wife because it was addressed to her, too. Immediately what came out of her mouth struck me: “Support isn’t support unless it comes with kindness.”

It was nice to know on this occasion that support had been received because of the kindness felt.

I’ve had people in my life say they cared, but never showed it in any tangible way. Apparently their few words were enough. Their ambivalence, sufficient? Their coolness, care? Their lack of kindness, my problem. Now, I know why people say they care but don’t. They don’t live the other person’s reality. They cannot, for whatever reason, extend past themselves. They don’t care because they’re not tangibly kind.

Those enduring adversity need support: the care of kindness, which is inevitably action-oriented, which can be words, but more often than not is more.

Support isn’t support unless it comes with kindness.
Care is felt through the action of kindness.

Nobody cares what we know until they know that we care, and nobody can tell if we care or not unless they feel kindness.

May God truly bless you as you support people by caring through your kindness,

Steve Wickham.

Love Spelt by the Letters C.A.R.E.

What is love? In a love-is-love world, the whole world wonders about love, yet we may be further from the concept of love than ever. But love has always been definitive. Love is not about a selfish concern. It is all about the other.

Love is spelt in the letters, C.A.R.E.

C is for COMPASSION

Care is briefed in the press room of compassion. There is nothing more tangible about care than compassion. The words care and compassion might easily be interchanged. If we love by the way of compassion, we think of others to the loss of ourselves, and in that we’ve cared.

A is for AWARENESS

Underpinning everything of care is awareness. If we miss awareness we miss care, and if we miss care we miss love. Awareness causes us to reflect, to redeem meaning, and to respond.

R is for RESPONSIVENESS

What else can responsiveness allude to other than responding to the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit? Care is the manifest grace of love to the extent of a response. Love is about seeing a need and responding in the provision of care.

E is for ENCOURAGEMENT

Another salient love is the gift given of encouragement. Care encourages. It misses no opportunity to encourage by the building up of frail members, and we all bear vulnerability. Love cares through encouragement, and I’d suggest love cannot be genuine fully-fledged love without it being an encouragement. Indeed, the very best tough love of challenge bears features of encouragement.

Compassion bred from Awareness Responds in the giving of Encouragement. This is the C.A.R.E. of love. Love is compassionate awareness responding through encouragement.

May God truly bless you as you love through compassionate awareness that responds by encouraging others,

Steve Wickham.

When Community and Connectedness Mean Spirituality

It happened in the central business district of my home city. About as secular an environment as you could imagine. Hustle and bustle, traffic signals, tall structures, lots of noise, people everywhere, busy going their own ways.

Beep! (A long sounding of a van’s horn.)

My instant reaction was one of incredulity that this unknown driver had interrupted my peace; that he ‘stood’ there in his delivery van right on the corner; in the way of the turning traffic. Incredulity turned momentarily to indignation. Then my reaction changed again when I observed what was happening. I saw the taxi cab in front parked in the delivery van’s area — a loading zone. The cab driver responded and kindly crept forward, indicated out, and drove off down the road a little further before parking. The delivery driver inched forward and parked in his zone.

Getting out of his van, my eyes met his, and we had a moment of spiritual connection.

It was like a second’s meeting of the delivery drivers’ fraternity. One smile requited another. That moment, this stranger and I, a person of different cultural heritage to me, we connected. We found mutual encouragement in each other; through the identification of a frustration alleviated that both of us could relate with.

God encouraged me that moment. He said, “See how important like-minded others are?”

Our spirituality is interwoven in the lattice of community. The more the vine grows, the more connectedness felt, the more spiritual joy we embody.

Community is not always hours spent with people. Sometimes it’s given or received in a moment’s connection with an absolute stranger.

A truthful experience of spirituality is the best life can offer, because it’s how God meets us in our innate need.

Community breeds connectedness, connectedness enhances spirituality, spirituality takes us into God, and in that God brings meaning to life.