Love's Worth in Forgiveness

To love someone is not just to love them when they are nice. Or when they do things for you, or listen to you. The true test of love is when someone hurts you. Do you love them enough to forgive them in your heart? To not hold any hard feelings, grudges against them? To treat them as you always have - as a friend who has never wronged you?

We are not perfect people. We suffer from time to time because of our mistakes, because of our selfish choices. Selfish choices that affect others in ways we might not have even considered. But we are all selfish. Just because one act of selfishness seems to stand out does not make it any worse. The intention is still the same.

So what do we do with our hardened hearts, feelings of mistrust and betrayal? Are we to turn a blind eye and just let it go? Are we naive to think that this person wouldn't harm us again?

Romans 15:1-2 says,

"We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up."

and it continues in verses 5-7,

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."

It also says in Luke 6:27,

"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."  

verse 32,

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.[...] But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 

verse 37,

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

So can you truly say you love someone when you can't forgive them for something they've done? Maybe that's why it's so hard to love others these days; because we don't step back to look at the big picture. We see ourselves in the right and the other in the wrong, and feel entitled to make judgments on them. We do not realize that we are equally sinners, neither the better. So just go through life forgiving others, as this is the way we have been taught to love others. 

Hear Your Voice

I am stressed.

I think I gave myself too many things to do this term. I have this philosophy that it's all about time management and about brain power. If I think I can, then I can. If I put in the time to do it, then it will happen. If I plan my time wisely, then I can get things done. Anything is possible with discipline and effort.

But do I live by this philosophy? No. It is brutally difficult, and I've found myself sacrificing my sleep because I have slacked off when I should have been working. When I could have been working. I'm not sure which one to use.

I am tired. I have been sleeping late every night this week. I missed two classes already. I mix up my days. Even though I have this emailing system where I email myself tasks that I need to complete and I read them several times a day, marking them unread if I am unable to do them at the moment, I still find myself swamped with tasks to do.

I like being busy. I like having things to do, places to be; a sense of purpose.

But is that really what I need? Is that really what I should be doing? Is this something that God would look upon and approve?

Today in fellowship we studied John 10:1-21. This passage talks about how Jesus is the good shepherd and He looks after His sheep (John). His sheep are dependent on Him to lead them to find pasture. This passage also talks about how the sheep know His voice, and how they do not follow the voice of strangers (John). So sheep. I am a sheep in this passage. I need Jesus to lead me through life, my life depends on it - on Him.

I've been stressing over trying to plan out my undergraduate career. Where I should go for exchange, what courses I should take and when. What do I need to get an option so that I can graduate with something other than just the regular "Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Systems Design Engineering"? Could I get a minor instead? Could I do an International Experience Option? How can I make my degree special? And then I realized that I had been spending so much of my time trying to figure this out when I should have been working on my work term report. I should have finished it by now, but I am not. Planning out my undergraduate career is not a priority at the moment, even if I feel the need to figure out my life right now.

I have been doing things, but I have not been consulting God first. I spent so much time thinking, planning, trying to control my life, that I haven't even asked God if this is what He wanted for me. I have not been listening to His voice. Do I even know His voice? Even sheep know their shepherd and follow him. But I do not give the chance for my Shepherd to be heard. His voice drowns in the midst of my business.

I could not concentrate in my circuits course today. I was sitting near the back of the classroom with friends, but I was not talking to them. I was listening to the lecture the entire time, copying notes from the board, trying to grasp the concepts. The professor went through a sample problem and came to come calculations that I did not understand. I tried to figure it out on my own but I couldn't concentrate. At that moment, I felt that I needed absolute silence to think. I am usually very good at blocking out background chatter. Today I could not. I even approached him after the lecture ended to ask him to explain it to me again. Although it became a little clearer, I still was not 100% confident that I understood exactly what he was saying. I got very frustrated and did not want to bother the professor any more. I was sweating and feeling very uncomfortable with the fact that I had asked him the same thing several times, each time feeling like I should know this but I don't and my professor knows and probably thinks I didn't pay attention even though I did. This bothers me. I will have a look at it again tomorrow, after I've had some sleep. I asked my peers but it seemed like they didn't know either, nor did they seem to care. What do I do.

Although I felt like I was not really getting much from the Bible study in John today, it's funny how I came home and read it again and actually thought about it seriously.

I wish that there was someone I could talk to. I am an external processor so I am typing this out. But it would be nice to just be able to verbally express myself. The problem is that I don't know anyone who would want to listen. I don't know what I would want from them. Maybe it's my own ego that's getting in the way of me feeling how I should feel. Do you get that? I know how I should not be feeling so I suppress those feelings, but then I don't know how I should be feeling, so I have a bundle of confused crap and no place to get rid of it.

I wish I could hear Your voice. I want to know what it sounds like. I want to know what You have to say to me. Please speak.

Holes

Do all holes have to be circular?

Can we have holes in different shapes?

The Core

I used to think we were all good at the core. And then life happened and I started believing that we were actually all evil at the core. But today, a friend of mine and I were chatting and this topic came up. I told her that I had decided that we were all evil at the core. Interestingly enough, she agreed and disagreed with me on that one.

This is the verdict: At the innermost core, we are good, because we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and afterward, He commented that all He had made was very good (Genesis 1:31).

But the problem is that we have let sin into our lives, into our being. We were cursed (Genesis 3:14) so now there is a layer of evil above the good core.

This is interesting to me because it was much easier for me to believe that we were all evil. This gave an excuse for me to not do good, as it was my "true self" anyway. This made it also easier for me to deal with people who hurt me, as I didn't have to try at our relationship and try to make things right with them. It would have been just easier to let them go, thinking that they were bad anyway so there's not much to it. So in reality, it was actually really wrong of me to think that people were evil at the core. Seriously messed up.

Knowing and believing that people are actually good at the core makes things difficult. It seems like some people have a thicker layer of evil before you can dig to the good, and digging requires effort and care. I can't say that I don't have my own layer of evil, but that doesn't mean I can't try to make it thinner.

Sigh. Now that I have revisited the question about the core, I now have to put in the effort and hope that I will be able to dig through in my relationships with others to be able to get a glimpse of that innermost, good core.

A friend told another friend something along the lines of this: If we were made in God's image, then we can get to know more about God through getting to know more people's cores.

What a thought to ponder.