Not as Easy as One Thinks – Mt 5:23
23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
I was out of control angry and on a “harsh walk.”. Have you ever been on a “harsh walk”? The kind where you stomp around, exchange unkind word to God, and are just about to lose it as you are so angry with someone?
That’s where I was at. Walking in the pasture. Furious. And that’s when God spoke to me.
”Go and talk to her.”
He said it fairly plainly so it wasn’t one of those things I could say that maybe it wasn’t God, or maybe it was bad pizza or some other excuse. There was no excuse in that moment.
My anger only escalated.
”But she is the one in the wrong! She is the one causing so much harm! She is at fault! And you want ME to be the one to go talk to her?!”
I stomped around the pasture mumbling and grumbling to myself. It just didn’t see fair. Or right. But finally I crossed the line. I was going to obey.
About a week later I showed up at her house to try to talk to her. She literally stood over me and screamed. I literally had to tell her to back off of me. I could tell people that but nobody would believe me. She had told me she had been “talking” about me to others and they had only heard one side.
I tried my best to reconcile. But she didn’t want it. She only wanted to attack. It went so far worse than I could have ever imagined.
But I did it. I tried. And there was something in my heart that somewhat of a burden was taken off in that I obeyed. It wasn’t that things went more smoothly. They did not. I still suffer the effects of her actions.
I’m glad I obeyed. Sometimes it is one of the hardest things we do. Yet God desires peace. He desires reconciliation. He desires our effort to make it happen. In this case reconciliation did not happen. I was not perfect nor did I handle things perfectly, but I tried.
Some say it is hard when we realize we’ve done wrong and have to go to someone to repent to the and ask for forgiveness. I think it’s much harder when you feel you are the one who has been wronged, yet God asks you to be the one to go to them to attempt reconciliation.
‘As far as it depends on us live at peace with all men’ (Rom 12:18).
It’s not always possible. But God asks us, whether we are in the wrong or have been wrong, to try to make it happen.
