Thank you for joining us!
Before we begin our essay, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from Monday’s discussion question:
left a comment that was short, but very profound.Learning that to forgive means - actually - to change is humbling. Much grace is needed.
Anyone else feel the holy sting of that? I know I do.
Seth is a landscape painter and writes a newsletter here called Inscribed where he talks about faith and art. Thank you for commenting, Seth!
God will not define limits for our love because His love has no limits. He does choose to judge people, of course, but unlike ours, His judgments are righteous and untainted by sin. Only He knows the right time for them. The vastness of His compassion, however, is enough to cover every person on the planet, and He calls us to be like Him. That means loving in the extreme, forgiving in the extreme, and sacrificing in the extreme. Can we do that? No. But He can do that in us and through us. Let Him live in you without limits. Let Him open your eyes to a world of neighbors.
—Chris Tiegreen (emphasis mine)
An interesting pattern arose in our comment section on Monday: a lot of you mentioned needing to extend grace to yourselves during this season of life. Untidy selves and untidy lives making you feel guilty, behind, trying to catch up.
You told us that you needed to give yourself room to exist without shame, to move through your days however you can, to be gentle with yourselves. Tidy or not.
I can relate. I think most of us can.
Monday’s devotional was all about embracing the stranger without judgment and loving the outsider without question. But how does that look when we turn all of our judgments and questions on ourselves?
The unsung story of grace is that it begins by forgiving ourselves for our imperfections, faults, and stumblings. By loving ourselves without judgments, letting go of shame we aren’t meant to carry.
If God Himself sacrificed so much to raise us to Himself, the least we can do is honor His sacrifice by stepping into that forgiveness, not pulling away, not refusing by holding ourselves to an impossible standard.
God is realistic about who we are. We are not.
When we stumble, God is not surprised. He merely holds out His hand and invites us back to our feet, every time.
If we long to be people who love, serve, and forgive like God, that begins with us. Deep within ourselves, creating a space to feel safe. No matter how untidy our exterior worlds are, the work inside is where it starts.
As
said in our Comment Highlight: to forgive is to change. Deeply, and fully. Not taking it back.The more we see ourselves as the neighbor who needs to be loved without judgment, the easier it will be to recognize that neighbor in others.
Benediction
May the God who loves to the extreme teach us to love without limits, beginning deep within our own souls.
May He then guide us to those who need our compassion most.
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The uncontainable in an infant in a manger. The omniscient writing in the dust. The immortal on a cross and in a tomb. The dead raised. Forgiveness. Change. All things new. (I appreciate the mention. I assumed no one was looking. Thank you.)
Whenever I think on the topic of forgiving oneself, I am reminded of Downhere’s 2006 album, Wide Eyed and Mystified. Track number 8 is titled Forgive Yourself. Definitely worth a listen!