Degenerative Metamorphosis

"What Ive felt
What Ive known
Never shined through in what Ive shown
Never free
Never me
So I dub the unforgiven"

How ironic that words in a popular Hard Rock song from the 1990's can ring forth such truth. I have been shown recently what a cancer unforgivness is to our spiritual lives and our relationship with Jesus.

I have suffered a loss of intimacy with my lord over the last few months because I have harbored anger, bitterness and resentment towards a person in my life who has been the source of a great deal of pain for more than 20 years. It used to be, before my new life in Jesus, that I would push this person away and allow them minimal access to me or my family. Honestly, it was easier then. I didn't have to deal with her. If she made me angry, or in any way reminded me of the chaos that accompanies her presence in our lives at times, I could simply slam the door harshly in her face and feel quite satisfied with myself and the justification for how I felt.

When I came to the Lord, however, he had different plans for me. He issued me an order early on in my new life in him. I heard it as plainly as if he literally spoke the words to me audibly. He said to receive the fullness of the life he has prepared for me, I must reconcile this relationship. So, for the past two years we've been doing pretty well. Things seemed to be moving in the right direction. Recently however, the strong holds in her life have resurrected their heads and revealed they still have sway over her life. In this, my sin was revealed in how I responded to her. Though I would like to explain what I felt in such a way that you will empathize with me, plainly put it is hate.

It is hate simply for not being the love that Christ offers. Anything apart from the Lord and his righteousness is filthy rags. Those things e mask as frustrations, or "mild" anger, left unchecked will fester until they are revealed in their full vileness for what they are; hate. And the cost of this in my life is unbearable.

So now I embark on a journey of reconciling this rooted bitterness with a person I am fully justified in being angry with. Yet the Lord does not acknowledge this justification because like the debt he paid for me on the cross, this debt has been paid in full as well and is no longer mine to collect. Christ has purchased through the cross even those wrongs done TO me. I am left with not one injustice I can rightly seek vengence for. To usurp these injustices from him is to remove him from the position of Lord of my life. In taking back these debts, which he returns to me for a season, I discovered a most unpleasant and unexpected cost; I must reclaim the debts I owe as well.

Its an all or nothing exchange. I cannot expect that my Lord will pay my debts and allow me to hold on to bitterness towards others that have done me wrong. He can't allow that. To love as he loved, and live as he commands, requires that I submit EVERYTHING to him. If I insist on holding on to this unforgiveness, then the love of Christ does not live in me and I am apart from him.

If this sounds preachy, let me be plain. This sucks. I am not typing from a pious position of illuminated wisdom, rather from a pit of humiliation and, dare I confess, despair of what I must do to find the intimacy with my Lord that my soul thirsts for. I am a prideful and vengeful man today. But praise God that he has shown me what must be done for me to walk in victory over this thing that will steal my life from me and corrupt me into something dark, hard and wicked.

Father, I surrender this to you. Lest my own heart become diamond hard against you, I surrender. Please teach me your grace. Increase my faith father so that I may let you be lord over my life. Teach me to forgive my mother...