The Pain of Learning

Mark 11:22-25

   "²² Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. ²³ I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. ²⁴ I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. ²⁵ But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

Again, I'm reading my Bible and God's word is screaming at me! Maybe I misjuged my word for the year, maybe instead of paitence, it should have been faith.

Several years ago, I was filling convicted to try and "watch my words" better then I was at the time. So at the beginning of that year, I decided to underline/highlight all of the verses that talked about words in my "read it in a year" Bible. It turns out that Provebs, especially, has a lot to say about words; as well as James. It appears that I'm doing the same thing this year with the word faith. Every time I turn around, God's nudging me towards that word, or some aspect of that word. I think this is where the paitence comes in, it's part of my faith walk. I need to learn paitence to wait on God's will for my life; but have faith that His will for me, is a good thing as well.

I remember a long time ago, when the "Believe it and recieve it" campaign was going on, and lots of people were "claiming" things in the spirit of this campaign. I was young enough to not really understand what was going on then, but I think that it got a little out of hand and showy; and people started speaking out against it. I am not sure, exactly, how God viewed that campaign, but I know this verse was mentioned a lot during that time. I noticed for the first time last year, and again this year, that this verse comes with a "but". It dosen't say that all you have to do is believe and it WILL happen, it says that you must first forgive others whom you are holding grudges against.

Can you imagine? How often do we hold grudges, kowingly? I know that I've talked about this before, but if we hold grudges that often knowingly, how often are we holding grudges when we don't even realize it? I found myself instantly praying about a situation I've been enduring for awhile, is it enough to forgive that person in my head? Do I need to call them and tell them personally that I've forgiven them for hurting me? I know that, at least, for me...I'm scared. I scared that making that phone call, will cause me more pain. In this particular situation the other person may believe that I was the one causing the pain and therefore, shouldn't NEED to be forgiven by me. I've finally started to deal with this pain in my heart over the choices that were made; do I really want to bring it all back up? But then I read this verse again, and I'm struck; how do I handle it? I'm on a journey to grow my faith; to lean paitence, but is this really possible; without the forgivness being voiced?

In the same breath that I told God I forgave them...again...I had to instantly ask for my own forgivness. If I'm holding a grudge against someone, I am sinning. There is no way to "softly" put that, but to say it. Holding a grudge is SIN. The Bible tells us to confess our sins and we will be forgiven. So I'm here to tell you that I HAVE indeed held a grudge, and I have indeed released it to God...again. I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle this situation, but I know that it'll take some serious prayer and counsel from friends to clear it in my head.

I must have been meant to write about this today, because I had intended to write about the faith aspect of this verse, but again...God yelled, and said "HEY, don't forget this part...this is a VERY important part of this verse!" I praise God, because He really is teaching me things, even if they ARE painful to learn. I pray that I'm able to take His lessons with a grain of salt, get up and put them into action!