Weed or Treasure?

I love these flowers. If you read in a gardening magazine about a flower that bloomed with little or no care from July through October, attracted at least six different kinds of showy butterflies, had huge blossoms a foot across that kept for up to two weeks as a cut flower, what would you pay to have it in your garden?

Here people cut it and call it a weed. To me it’s a treasure.

I wonder how many of us treat our treasures like weeds simply because they come too easily to us?

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Thank you for helping!

This is what I was thinking when I started asking just how it helped to have Christ suffer for my sins. How does that work? Is Christ really necessary? How did I come to the conclusion that we need Christ? Because the universe is both just and merciful.

Some people think justice is bad; it’s punishment. But think of the victims. Don’t they deserve to have their broken lives made whole? Isn’t victim’s restitution also part of justice?

This is what I was thinking about one day as I looked at a picture of Christ paying another man’s debt to a creditor. The man couldn’t pay the debt, and unless someone else did, he was going to debtor’s prison. Christ offered to pay the debt if the one who owed the debt would accept him as the creditor. And if the person who was owed the debt would mark the debt paid in full and not ask the debtor for any more. I looked at that picture and I thought who symbolizes me in this picture?

I’m the debtor of course I said to myself. Then I asked myself, “Is there anything I have done that I cannot make up for? Is there anyone I have hurt that even if I apologized with all my heart and did all the good I could from now on, it still wouldn’t restore the lost confidence, heal the broken heart or give back the missed opportunities?” I could think of more than several.

I thought even if I did nothing but good from now on, would that make up for the past? Even if there was such a thing as reincarnation and I was reborn a hundred thousand times and did nothing but good would that make up for it? No. The universe would be out of whack unless that person’s life was restored, was healed. Christ says he can pay that debt. Reincarnation is unnecessary because of Christ.

If people forgive without being healed the universe is not just. If people demand healing and retribution from one who cannot pay rather than forgive the universe is not merciful. It is Christ who steps in between the debtor and creditor and pays the debt making the universe both just and merciful.

That made sense. But then I had more questions.

As I looked at the picture again I asked myself who is the creditor? He was drawn as a dark man with dark hair and beard and unforgiving eyes. I’ve asked other people that question. Who is the creditor? People say cautiously Satan? But does Christ owe Satan anything?

Of course not. Who is owed the debt? The person I hurt.

But sometimes I am the person who was hurt. I am the creditor. I asked myself, can Christ heal me of the grief and pain caused by another? The scriptures say yes. The Bible says “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good. (Romans 8:28)” And even more pointedly Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

I thought of Christ standing before me in place of the person who hurt me offering to heal me, to pay the debt if I would forgive the debtor. I don’t have to forgive in a vacuum just because it’s a good thing to do. If I forgive Christ offers to make up for it. I looked at my life. I thought of times I’d been hurt. I asked God to open my eyes to the healing of Christ and I saw it. I saw people sent into my life who did heal me, comfort me, restore my confidence.

I remembered events I still hadn’t forgiven because I didn’t want God to forget to punish those people who hurt me.

This brought up another question I’d had. There’s a story in the Bible about a debtor who is forgiven a debt of a thousand but since he refuses to forgive the debt of one who owes him a penny, his original debt of a thousand is unforgiven and he is tossed into debtor’s prison.

That analogy works fine for most of us I would think. But what about a 10 year old girl who’s been sexually and physically abused. Isn’t the debt she’s trying to forgive more like the thousand while she owes the penny? What about people like that? Good people who have been cruelly hurt.

Now as I looked at this picture I understood it. Christ said he suffered that punishment the debtor owed and he could heal the creditor, the person hurt, if the person would let Christ do it. It is Christ who stands before us and asks will you let me pay the debt? Will you let me heal you? Christ who was betrayed by a dear friend, who sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane from the agony, who begged to not have to drink the bitter cup, who was beaten and cruelly crucified. What will you say to him? No. You can’t understand this kind of pain. No. You didn’t suffer enough.

Is there anyone who can say that?

I looked at the picture again. I thought sometimes I’m the person who owes the debt and sometimes I’m the person who is owed the debt.

The atonement, I thought, is like a US dollar. On the front of the dollar is a picture of a man. That man represents me when I’m the debtor. The one who owes the debt. On the back is a picture of a building. I think of that building as being filled with all the people who have ever hurt or harmed me. The people who owe me a debt.

Christ stands before me holding out the dollar and asks, “Will you accept the atonement?”

All of a sudden I understood Matthew 6:14-15 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (King James Version)

I can’t take just the front of the dollar. It’s all or nothing. Either I’m healed of the guilt and shame I feel for the things I’ve done and I’m healed of the grief and pain I feel for the things others have done to me or I’m left to suffer on my own.

Either I accept all the healing and joy of the atonement or none of it. It’s all a gift.

I sure hope not.  If they are I’m falling short of my goal to learn how God thinks and to do the things that please Him.  Way short.

It’s this scripture that had me thinking about it.  “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly , or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthian 9:7 (King James Authorized Version of the Bible)

Does this mean if I do something even though I’d rather not that in God’s eyes I shouldn’t have bothered?  Because I’ll bet there are plenty of times people aren’t happy but act in a gracious and cheerful manner.  In fact, here’s a saying that makes that point.

Cheerfulness in the face of adversity is the highest form of courage.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs here but I think if we act cheerful even though we are not happy that ought to count for something.

Digging into the subject I come up with this:
The words translated as happy in both the Old and New Testaments (asher in the Old, makarios in the New) also mean blessed.  Cheerful on the other hand is a different word (hilaros) which can mean joyous or prompt to do anything.

Prompt to do anything!  Grudging is the opposite – done very unwillingly .( http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/grudging)

I’ve decided that even if I’m not happy about some of the sacrifices of time and effort I’m called to make (especially when I’m prompted to cook someone else a meal since I hate to cook) but if I do it promptly and with – well, perhaps not a smile but at least not a scowl – then I filled the requirement of Corinthians above.  I did it promptly and cheerfully – even if I wasn’t happy about it.

And God gives me the credit even if other people don’t.   Because often other people mistake cheerful for happy.  For example one year I decided to smile each morning at 5:30 AM as the high schoolers came dragging downstairs for early morning seminary.    That was it.  Just look happy even if I was so tired it took all my energy just to make those little face muscles move to make the smile.   After nine months of that when I exploded in cheers on hearing seminary was out a week earlier than I thought, the kids looked at me stunned and one said, “Why are you cheering?  You were happy to get up every morning.’

See.  No credit for cheerful.  At least not from people.  But God knows.   Looking back on it, every time I’ve sacrificed promptly (cheerfully) if not happily, God blesses me with the joy.

What do you think?

Olga’s father lived with her so she could care for him as he aged. She was working in the kitchen one day keeping an eye on him through the doorway into the living room He stood up and headed toward her calling out, “Daughter.” (He always called her daughter.) Just as he got to the door he dropped dead.

Olga says she grieved again every time she glanced at the doorway, remembering that awful moment. One day she grabbed a chain saw and, measuring two feet down from the ceiling and three feet up from the floor on this non-bearing wall, chainsawed it down.

The whole wall fell into the living room just as the children were coming into the house from school. “MOM!” they called out in shock.

She laughed at the memory as we both sat looking at the counter where the wall used to be. One sad memory down. One laughing one in it’s place.

Brother Hill says after he was baptized people kept coming up to him asking how he felt, if he felt different. He said he didn’t know how to describe it. Then after a couple of weeks he knew what it was. “The hate’s gone,” he says. “I can pass my ex-wife on the street and just feel friendly.”

The hate’s gone. Christ heals on all levels. What a gift the atonement is if we let it be.

If we had world peace, abundance for all including you – what would you be doing? That’s what I asked Parker yesterday. Assume the house is finished, the green house is built. Christ has come again. There is no one that needs our help. How would you spend your time?

What is the joy you were created for?

How about you?

Olga, a West Virginia mountain woman shared a bit of her life with me the other day.  Decades ago she was left a widow with three young children.  Shortly after that her husband’s good friend told Olga her husband had asked him to marry Olga to take care of her and the children.

Olga did.  He didn’t.  He was an abusive philanderer.  During the years they were together she supported the family working as a nurse while giving birth to two more children by him.  Eventually he left her for another woman. Olga didn’t seem too unhappy about this.

Years later she came home from work to find him in the home.  Her daughter (and his) said he had a fatal illness.  She wanted to drop out of college and with Olga’s permission – and help – care for her father until he died.

Olga already worked a physically demanding job.  The last thing she wanted to do was to come home to another person needing nursing care – especially not this person.  At the same time she wanted to support her daughter in doing the right thing by her father.

Here’s the prayer she prayed.  “God, I don’t want to do this.  But if you want me to do this and will give me the strength to do this, I will.”

He must have because she and her daughter cared for her ex-husband for five years until he eventually passed away. Then her daughter finished college and got a good job.  And Olga smiles when she tells the story.

What the challenge is and what is going on with the challenge