Basics on Toxics

 

“Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. 

Try not to take it personally.”  Kamand Kojouri

 
This morning we’re beginning a several week series, “Dealing with Toxic People.” The dictionary defines Toxic as: “containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation.” Applying our spiritual nature to this definition gives us the reality that toxic people are those who are capable of causing mental and emotional injury and death, or serious debilitation, to both their lives and ours.
  We all have toxic people in our lives. Because of sin, at some level, we’re all toxic. For some reason, memes about toxic people, narcissism and broken relationships have exploded on social media. Yet, toxic people have always been around. Probably the acrimonious cultural divisions we’ve seen in recent years have heightened our awareness of toxic relationships.
  Genesis 4 is one of the first toxic relationships. Cain’s anger at God erupted with his murdering his brother, Abel, who’d done nothing to antagonize Cain. Abel was simply seeking to please God, but his commitment to God enraged Cain and Abel ended up as the first victim of rage and cold-blooded murder. Like Abel, sometimes you don’t have to do anything other than exist to find yourself the target of someone’s toxicity.  
  As I’ve watched the obsession with toxic people on social media, the thought occurred to me that “if your best strategy in dealing with toxic people is memes, you’re in big trouble.” Add to that, we tend to throw around terms and use a broad brush. Do those using these terms even know what they mean? That line by Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride seems apropos. “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.” Before we label someone, we should be certain of our own understanding of the label and what the term actually means.
  For example, someone may be labeled a “narcissist.” The dictionary defines it, “A person full of egoism. One who shows extreme love and admiration for himself or herself. Someone in love with themselves.” Have you ever met someone who isn’t full of pride at some level and loves and admires themselves? We’re all guilty. Now someone who is truly a narcissist takes that to extremes. Yet, traits of toxicity that so bother us in the lives of others are frequently ones that we also are guilty of. Toxicness is true of all of us at some level according to Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Be aware that as we work through this series, there are some themes that we’ll return to each week.  
  When it comes to a toxic trait, first suspect the sinner you know best. Stop for a moment and answer this question. Who is the worst sinner that you know? Chances are that you know hundreds, even thousands of people. Think of all those people and ponder: Who is the worst sinner of all?
  Perhaps you thought of a parent who did great damage to you as a child. Maybe a co-worker who delights in her own vileness, or a friend who is imprisoned for what he has done. If you were honest though, you admitted that you know someone who is a far greater sinner than any of these – YOU. When I stop and think about the greatest sinner I know, I must admit that it’s me. I’m the greatest sinner I know…and you’re the greatest sinner you know. There is seemingly no end to the depravity of my own heart. As William Law said, “Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.” So, as we work through these toxic traits, please first look in the mirror of your soul. Frequently, we have blind spots and would be wise to ask those closest to us: How do you experience me?
  Then, be warned. Because of our own toxicity, we can project what we are onto others. King Ahab did that to Elijah, accusing God’s prophet of being the source of Israel’s trouble. For example, if someone is a habitual liar, they assume that all others are liars. The same is true of someone who is manipulative or has an anger issue. We assume others think like us.
  If you are in a toxic relationship whether in your marriage, family, workplace or wherever – God put you there. Read the first two chapters of the book of Job. Who allowed Job to go through all that misery? God. One of the most toxic families in the Bible is that of the patriarch, Joseph. Yet, God used that dysfunctionality to “send” Joseph to Egypt to preserve the nation of Israel (Psalm 105:17).
  As much we may hate it, God uses fire to melt away our own sinful habits and traits to make us trophies of His grace. I know that’s true in my life. I doubt that I’d be in the ministry today and love the Lord, if I had not grown up in the family that I grew up in. As Job observed, “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10).
  I love those words of Joseph at the end of Genesis as his brothers were terrified that Joseph would execute justice and take revenge on them for the evil that they’d done to him. “But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today’” (Genesis 50:19-20).
  There is always hope! There are times when the best decision is to walk away or at least limit the toxic individual’s influence in your life. Yet, the tendency in our culture is to bail too soon. We know little of what the Bible calls longsuffering and perseverance.
  Living in the heat of a toxic relationship must drive us to prayer. While it’s appropriate to pray for deliverance. Yet, God never wastes our pain, so we should also pray that God will, as He did in the life of Joseph and many others, use the pain to produce spiritual fruit in our own lives.  
  Then, if there is no relief, we’re confident that the very worst toxic situation for the Christ-follower is temporary. The Apostle Paul endured terrible fiery trials. Notice the contrast in his words between temporal trials and life in eternity. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

 

When Church is a Family

 

“I believe that one major reason that the church of Jesus Christ in the United States is very close to being in sheer chaos today is because so many people think themselves as individuals rather than as part of the body of Christ.  Christianity is not ‘every man for himself;’  it’s every man together for Christ.”  Wayne Mack 

  Today we’re beginning a new sermon series that will take us through the end of September: One Another – Doing Church Life Together. Personally, I’m very excited about this series. One of the distinctives of the early church that’s God’s plan for us even today is strong relationships. Please pray that this will not be a “sermon series” or just “a bunch of good talks.” God wants us to apply His truth. It’s why we’ve nearly begged you to either be part of a group or even lead one to work through this series at a deeper level. We’re even providing all of the discussion questions for you.
  This dovetails with one of my great burdens for our church and one of my continual prayers. Consistently, I pray that the Lord will give us three things at Grace: 1) A passionate love for Jesus Christ. 2) A passionate love for each other. 3) A passionate love for our community.
  The majority of American Christians have a “consumer” understanding of the church, not a biblical one. They attend church to find what’s in it for them. It’s something to attend for an hour a week to “shop” spiritually. They don’t have deep relationships, nor is there deep commitment. Such thinking is foreign to what Scripture teaches about church relationships.
  Of all the metaphors used to describe the local church, one that stands out above the rest is family. In fact, it’s so much of the essence of the church that it can’t even properly be called a metaphor. Metaphors describe what the church is like or similar to—light, flock, field, building—but family is not metaphorical; it’s a literal description of the phenomena we know as church. That’s because the church is not like family; it is family.
  God is literally our Father, Jesus is literally our elder brother, and we are literally brothers and sisters in Christ. Family is the primary way the early church identified themselves. This is seen by the fact that the word disciple, so prevalent in the early part of the New Testament, disappears after the book of Acts. It’s replaced by the terms brother and sister for the rest of the Bible. Family dominates the self-understanding of the early church. When the apostolic writers wanted to address an entire congregation, they frequently called them “brothers and sisters.” The people in the seats around us are, in fact, our family.
  Acknowledging our spiritual sibling relationships isn’t an intellectual exercise; it’s a profound truth that should stir deep emotions and overflow in tangible ways. Because they are family, we learn their names (3 John 15) and find out their interests. We display “family affection” (Romans 12:10). There are no cliques, favoritism or partiality (James 2:1-9). In innumerable ways, we seek to say: you are my brothers and sisters, and I love you.
  Throughout the New Testament, God commands us to have mutual care in the local church. The epistles, in particular, tell us what it means to be brothers and sisters and teach us “how one ought to behave in the household of God” (1 Timothy 3:15). With their various “one another” commands, these New Testament letters remind us that life in God’s family will reorient our allegiance—not only on Sunday but every hour of every day.
  Consumers attend church looking for what they will receive. Those with a biblical understanding of the church look for what they can give to it of time, money, and themselves. The church is not a man-made society that we can participate in—or opt out of—according to our level of comfort. The PTA, the HOA, or the library book club don’t obligate us to personal sacrifice when things get tough. Family does. And because God’s people are our family, we will hold our own preferences and priorities loosely. We set aside our social status, age group, ethnicity, and politics for the family. We open our hearts and doors. We pull up another chair at mealtime and add another name to our prayer list. We will give them our groceries,  furniture, and smiles. We will share their grief and trials and disappointments. We will continually look for ways to show love. 
  As a result, we will expect to have less money and less free time than we would have on our own. We will expect to have added sorrow. We will also expect to have great joy. 
  One of my favorite stories is told by a Vacation Bible School teacher with a second-grade class. A new student came into her class one day, a little boy, but he had a physical challenge; he only had one arm. The teacher wished she’d had a chance to coach the kids about accepting this boy and not treating him any differently. But the children did great. At first, they  stared a little bit. The teacher just didn’t want anyone to embarrass him in any way. Yet at the end of the class, she forgot herself, and said, “Kids, let’s close the class today by doing that little exercise: ‘This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people.”  Then she looked down and noticed the child missing an arm, and she realized she’d done to him what she hoped none of the kids would do. And right then one of the girls in the class reached out her right hand and put it in the boy’s left hand and she said, “Come on, Davy, let’s build a church together.” 
  That’s what a biblical church does. It builds the church together. It understands spiritual family. It brings people together who apart from God’s grace would never come together. It unites us around Jesus’ cross and submits to the Spirit to build a family a lost world can’t comprehend. And it’s all for His glory! It’s what the New Testament is teaching us as it continually shares passage after passage of the “one anothers.” 

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Who's YOUR King?

 

“Life is about making your own happiness and living by your own rules.”  Aimee Mullins

 

It’s a plot often found in history and portrayed in movies of having two monarchs vying for the same throne. Alexandre Dumas, in his final installment of the Three Musketeers series, The Man in the Iron Mask fictionalizes a tale of the powerful and corrupt King Louis XIV. According to his book,  Louis XIV had a twin brother imprisoned deep in the Bastille. This twenty-three-year-old prisoner known only as Philippe was forced to wear an iron mask and had been imprisoned for eight years. He has no knowledge of his true identity or told what crime he’s committed. He’s imprisoned by the king to protect his throne. There can only be one king.
  This morning as we continue our series in 1 Samuel, we find King Saul hunting down David, for fear that David will attempt to take his throne. There can only be one king. Today is also Palm Sunday. David’s future son, Jesus Christ, entered Jerusalem as Israel’s Messiah. He is the one true king. With more than one king there is chaos and anarchy.
  Ours is a world of chaos because when Jesus is not king, there is misery. Yet, there are many false kings in the world. You could call them idols. That false king philosophy is what Aimee Mullins is purporting, “Life is about making your own happiness and living by your own rules.” It’s a worldview that ultimately leads to despair. False kings promise everything yet leave us empty in the end. There can only be one king.
  The conflict of the ages is to have other kings, any king but Jesus. Luke 19:14 records this insurrection against having Jesus as King, “We do not want this man to reign over us.” Yet, you’ll quickly discover that if Jesus is not King, we enthrone a false king. Even Christians who have sworn allegiance to King Jesus do this. Here are some of the more common ones:
  Self. Our culture is awash with selfishness. Too often it seeps into the church with what Eugene Peterson describes as the “replacement trinity,” my wants, my needs, and my desires. While those have their place, they’re usurpers who ultimately steal our joy.
  God created us. Jesus died for us and ransomed us from the slave market of sin. The only king who will bring fulfillment to us is the One who knows us and loves us. Self must be dethroned. It’s a cruel tyrant. Only when Jesus is Lord is selfishness dethroned.
  Money. All around the globe wealth is thought to be a savior. We encourage young people to go to college and get an education. That’s good yet the motivation is so that we can get money to have all of the things that we believe will make us happy. We have a terrible struggle with preventing money from being our king.
  Living for money is a cruel taskmaster. Money is a good gift from God, but it is not God. Our retirement accounts, stock portfolios, and benefits packages don’t save. Only Jesus can save. Wealth leaves those who serve it empty. They find, to borrow a term from Mick Jagger, “can’t get no satisfaction.”  When we look for fulfillment or measure our worth by what we have, we’re trusting a king who promises much yet can never deliver.
  Power. Power is intoxicating. Power and authority were granted by God at creation. He made us humans to serve under His rule in a way that imitates His rule of justice and order. But humans have a strange tendency to twist power for their own ends rather than exercise power with justice. And when power slips through our fingers, we go berserk. Why? Because we’ve deified power. While power is a gift from God, it is not God. Power only works if we have submitted ourselves to the Lord and His care first.
  Sexuality. Sex is God’s idea. He made human beings inherently sexual. It’s God’s beautiful plan for a man and a woman to unite in marriage and have sexual intimacy. But sexuality is a tyrant when we make it a right, not a gift. God’s good gift devolves into a source of pain and frustration, far away from God’s original design. Outside of God’s plan, it leaves us broken, scarred, and in spiritual and emotional shambles. Those of us who have experienced the brutality of unrestrained sexuality, know that pain from its wounding. Sexuality is a fantastic gift, yet a cruel master.
  Relationships. God designed us to have relationships as He does in the Godhead in the Trinity. He created us so that we could relate first to God and then to our neighbor. Too often a relationship is enthroned in the false belief that it will make life wonderful. But human relationships can never fill the hole in our soul because of sin. While we’re made for relationships, relationships with others (romantic or fraternal) can never replace the primary relationship of the God who loves us and made us! Relationships put on the throne in place of God are fraught with anxiety and frustration.
  Family. With the fragmentation of marriage and the redefining of family in western culture, it’s tempting to enthrone family as a defense against this cultural erosion. The conjugal family—one man and one woman whose covenant union produces offspring—is God’s plan. It’s profoundly good, and a necessary and foundational element of God’s creational design, but it is not ultimate. A spouse, a child and even a grandchild must be secondary to King Jesus. Yet even churches can enshrine the family. A church can become so focused on families that they ignore singles and gear everything toward married couples or those with children. Somehow we forget that even Jesus was single and never married.
  Couples who prioritize their children or grandchildren, yet not a relationship with the Lord or their spouse, will find that choice sows seeds of future destruction in their marriage and ultimately leaves their souls empty. When children are the glue for 18-plus years, a couple finds the empty nest is an empty relational cave. Statistics show that the divorce rate jumps once the children are grown. The marriage was allowed to wither for lack of attention. and they have little in common anymore.
  The Enemy of our souls entices us to choose fake kings. It’s tempting to divert our focus from the one true Lord who gave His life for us. Even good things can cause Christ to lose preeminence in our lives and become an idol. Tim Keller writes, an idol “is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” 
  Palm Sunday is a reminder that Jesus is the one true King. Is He your King?

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

 

Enjoy: More than just a word

“We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.”  Bill Watterson

Following Super Bowl XXI on January 25, 1987, a Disney commercial starred New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, in which he was asked “Now that you’ve won the Super Bowl, Phil Simms, what are you going to do?” Simms, who replied “I’m going to Disney World,” was paid $75,000. FYI: John Elway was paid the same amount just in case the Denver Broncos had won. Disney later aired three more ads that year with other famous athletes following major sports championships. In subsequent years, Disney reportedly has offered $30,000 to athletes and other stars for participating in the ads and appearing at one of its theme parks.

  The word enjoy stems from the Old French word enjoir. It means “to give joy, rejoice, take delight in.” True enjoyment doesn’t have to be big, i.e. like going to Disney World. Enjoyment comes from learning to enjoy the seemingly “little things,” that which is often overlooked.  

  1 Timothy 6:17 has a thought-provoking warning, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” God has filled this world and our lives with “everything for our enjoyment.” In other words, you don’t have to go to Disney to have enjoyment. You can just step out your back door or in your own backyard. It doesn’t have to be big, extensive, or expensive. God wants us to enjoy the good things all around us. As we learn to do that, life becomes so much richer and so much more enjoyable.

  This year Jane and I had planned to go to Taiwan to spend a few weeks with our son, Aaron, and his wife, Jiayu. We were greatly looking forward to it, yet with the pandemic, it’s no longer an option. It was something that we knew that we would enjoy. Yet, we’d be foolish and miss out on our Heavenly Father’s many good gifts all around us if we only thought enjoyment was thousands of miles away. Or, if we chose to become miserable about what we’d missed, yet fail to enjoy what we have.

  God has filled our lives with enjoyment. It’s all around us if we’ll simply stop and take the time to look. Too often we miss the many things that our Heavenly Father has given us to enjoy because we erroneously believe that enjoyment is a destination or something extraordinary, expensive, exotic, special, novel, or new. We wrongly conclude that enjoyment must be extra special for it to be enjoyable, yet true enjoyment is just so “normal.”

  Learning to live in enjoyment usually starts with a change in our perspective. It requires slowing down or even coming to a complete stop. It means turning down the noise or putting it all on mute.

  Enjoyment is found in God’s creation. The other day I watched a cardinal out my window hopping from the top of the fence slat to the next top of a fence slat. It was like he had little springs on his feet. I love watching doves gather in our front lawn. As I was sitting on our front bench, a rabbit hopped within a few feet of me as I sat ever so still.

  Did you see the rainbow the other evening? Last Saturday I watched as a sheet of rain came rolling towards me. When was the last time that you looked up at the white billowy clouds, guessing what the shape looked like? Do you periodically stop to gaze up at the stars or a moon filled sky?    

  Enjoyment is found in God’s gift of our homes. Our spouses and children are a gift. God wants us to enjoy them. Enjoying your spouse doesn’t necessitate going away for a getaway or a big date. It’s in the everyday. It’s a light kiss or a gentle hug. It’s thoughtfulness and gratitude.

  If you feel that you must have a getaway to enjoy your spouse, is it truly your spouse you enjoy or the change in the environment? Enjoyment in marriage comes from sharing normal life and day to day adventures.

  Enjoyment is a child’s laughter or hearing them squeal with delight. Enjoyment is watching a teen transition from a child to an adult. Enjoyment is the aroma of a home-cooked meal. It’s doing a project together with your mate. Enjoyment is a family excursion to a local ice cream shop. If the children are young (or if the grandkids are over), there’s something particularly thrilling about a pajama run after everyone is ready for bed to a local drive-thru for ice cream. Enjoyment is in the seemingly mundane of washing dishes, taking out the garbage, or picking up toys for the 1000^th time. Someday there will be few dishes, little garbage, and no toys…other than maybe the dogs’ toys.

  Enjoyment is found in relationships. In western civilization we too highly value accomplishments. While there should be enjoyment in a job well done or a project completed, God designed us to be relational.

  Most of us place a low value on relationships, especially outside of our biological family. Yet, then we wonder why we have so little enjoyment in our lives. Our friendships tend to be wide, but rarely deep. And we jettison them very quickly over differences, dissonance, or disagreements.

  As you read the Bible, you’ll discover mature believers had a circle of friends. Moses had Aaron and Joshua. David had an inner circle. Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego had each other’s backs amidst the evil of Babylon. The Apostle Paul consistently traveled with a team.

  Even the Lord Jesus had a group of followers, both men and women, that He shared life with. I’d encourage you to do a study of not only Jesus’ 12 disciples but that group of followers that He continually interacted with.

  With the birth of the Church it’s very apparent from those early chapters in the book of Acts that they derived great joy from being in each other’s company and sharing spiritual life and everyday life together. Church was not a once a week event for them. They were a community and a family. To be sure, there were problems that they had to overcome, even persecution. That was part of the source of their enjoyment; a growing love for the Lord and each other in the midst of cultural and ethnic diversity.

  Life today is increasingly complicated. The enjoyment of life will rarely come from adding, but from subtracting. Famed basketball coach John Wooden was right, “it’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” Enjoyment comes by returning to the simple, to that which was already there but simply overlooked.

  This week determine to not just “do” life, decide to enjoy it. Thank your Heavenly Father for the simple and then bathe your heart in the pleasures that you may have overlooked or taken for granted. Tell yourself, “I’m enjoying this.” Most of us consistently rehearse in our minds what we don’t enjoy. And we’d enjoy so much more if we were thankful for the small things and habitually reminded ourselves that we were enjoying them. Most of us need to pull some noxious weeds of negative focus and cultivate an inner soul garden of enjoyment.

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

The Field of NEW Dreams!

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment

until it becomes a memory.”

  It seems that nearly every snowstorm, my friend, Tim Mocarski, posts on his Facebook wall, “Pitchers and catchers report in __ of days.” As we’re having a bit of “November-mas,” let me share a story happening next summer. On August 13^th of 2020, the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees will play in Dyersville, Iowa,—that field made famous by the movie, Field of Dreams. It’s being dubbed “MLB at Field of Dreams.”

  It’s one of my favorite movies. If you’re like me, it brings tears to my eyes every time. Though called “a baseball flick,” the real story is father-son relationships. At the end, Kevin Costner’s character asks his dad, “Have a catch?” World Magazine editor, Marvin Olasky writing on this:

  “My lifetime catches with my father: zero. He had no interest in baseball. I never played until I was 11. At that point I was a fat kid with a lazy left eye, so my batting average during one year of Little League was .182, if I generously count as hits what were probably errors. Still, I wanted to get better. Become a better fielder. So I nagged my father to come out on the street and throw me some ground balls. I said ‘street’ because we lived in urban Massachusetts and had no back yard or nearby green space. That meant a missed ball would go rolling and rolling. One day, finally, my father agreed. We stood in front of the house in which we had an apartment. I walked 20 yards away. He threw me a ball that bounced twice before it should have hit my glove—and I missed it. Embarrassed, and blaming my father rather than myself, I ran after it, yelling something like, ‘Why didn’t you throw it straight?’ By the time I reached the ball and turned around, he was walking up the steps to our front door. He went inside. That was it. We never again even started a catch. Nor did we talk much—and once I became a teenager, we spoke hardly at all.

  Cut to October, 1984. I was 34. He was 67—and dying of bladder cancer. I lived 2,000 miles away and flew to Boston with the public goal of providing some comfort and help, but my private motive was selfish: To learn how he’d transformed from a brilliant student to a person who had spent the last 30 years disengaged and defeated. One evening we sat on a Danish Modern couch in their apartment. After some perfunctory remarks I threw him a question about his dropping out of graduate school. The question was harder and curvier than a polite inquiry should have been. He got up and walked away, saying over his shoulder something like, ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ I put away the conversational ball and went to sleep. The next day I asked no more questions. My father and mother drove me to Boston’s Logan Airport. He wore a baseball cap because chemotherapy had left him bald. I pulled my suitcase out of the trunk, shook his hand, leaned over, and whispered in his ear, ‘I love you,’ because that seemed the right thing to say to a dying parent. I never saw him again.

  This October is the 35th anniversary of our non-conversation. It still haunts me. In the magic of Field of Dreams, the son and the dad finally have a catch. That catches my tears, every time.”

  That touched me. One of the great regrets of my own life is the fractured relationship with my Dad. During my formative years he was a great business success, yet a prescription drug addict. Later he cleaned up his life and even became very active in his church. But he and I seemed unable to ever resolve our unresolved issues. Though I’d love to point a finger at him, like Marvin Olasky, I’m sure there are many fingers pointing back at me. And now that my Dad is gone, it truly is unresolvable. There’s not anything specific that I know of, yet I’ve prayed to my Heavenly Father, “to the extent that I sinned in my relationship with my Dad, please forgive me.” Based on Scripture’s promise in 1 John 1:9, I know that God has.  

  Some situations, as Romans 12:19 reminds us (“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all”), are unresolvable. Yet, many others are. And if you can, please do solve them. Still, many others should just be buried and forever forgotten.

  Looking back I truly believe my Dad did the best he could and he really did a lot for me. His own father was a drunk, horribly abusive and even ended up for a time on a Georgia chain gang. Yet, my Dad paid for his children to attend private schools and also paid for me to attend high school in Wisconsin. He didn’t have to. Yes, he was difficult to live with and left scars on our lives. Yet, I truly believe it was out of ignorance, not malice.

  Sadly, I know that I too have left wounds on my own children’s souls. All parents do. None of us are perfect. We’re all sinners. With my own children, I’ve sought to own my sinful failures and asked their forgiveness. I don’t want unfinished business between us.

  As we come into the Holiday Season old wounds tend to resurface. Many of us need to forgive and move on. As believers, we ourselves have already been forgiven an unpayable debt, so, we too must forgive, “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). Most of our parents did the best that they could or knew how to do.

  As parents, though we determined to parent better than we were parented, we too have our own failures. It’s why we all need grace and grace is not something to horde, it’s given to be given away.

  During this Holiday Season when you’re tempted to let loose, remember again how much grace you’ve received. Not only that, you and I would not be who God has shaped us into if we’d not first been wounded. Years ago I determined to have the spirit the Patriarch Joseph had toward all of the evil his brothers had done to Him, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Gen. 50:20). That’s so freeing!

  Whether it's a parent or a sibling – choose to be a person of grace! While we can’t change yesterday’s memories, we can make new ones. If we build it, maybe they will come. Make new memories while you still can and thank God that His grace is enough for yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.