Records

Oh – lessons learned the hard way.

The other day I was meeting my dear friend Hannah for tea at Teavana. When we were checking out I told the assistant that the orders were together. Hannah tried to argue with me, but I reminded her that the last time we were at the mall together she insisted on buying me a coffee mug from Anthropologie (which I love – see picture).  

She laughed and said I was a grudge holder… keeping records of rights.

I love this.

I don’t always remember all of the wonderful things that people do for me, and I wish I did. I wish I kept better records of all the rights than I do of all the wrongs. Situations in life often pull us in unfriendly directions, or position us between two friends on opposing sides of a situation. These are not fun places to be, but they are inevitable in this broken world full of broken people (me included). When I sit long enough to think about my position, and to seek wisdom from the Word about how to handle situations like these, I usually end up at this verse: Luke 23:34 – When Jesus had been tortured – spit on – beaten – shamed (which is what we deserved) He says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” This verse is staggering to me. How can we comprehend so much love and mercy? There is so much truth in Jesus’ words from the cross, and it speaks into the daily lives of His children. Those crucifying our Lord did not know that He was the King of kings. Truthfully they did not know what they were doing. You may be thinking that the person who has wronged you DID know EXACTLY what they were doing, and you may be absolutely correct. Sometimes our hurts come from someone’s malicious intent to cause pain. Sometimes they come from an innocent remark that was taken the wrong way, or miscommunication of some sort. We hurt in all different ways, but the people who are hurting us are usually only acting this way because they too are hurting. We live in a broken world, full of broken people. We hurt others and are hurt by others. It’s not the way we want to live, but it is reality. 

So how do we live as Christ in the midst of this pain? He commands us to LOVE ONE ANOTHER just as HE has loved us[Jn 13:34], and to LOVE ONE ANOTHER more than we love ourselves [Mt 22:39]. Then He tells us through Paul’s letter that LOVE keeps no records of wrongs [1 Cor 13:5]. 

I don’t know if there is truly a way to forgive and forget. But a record of something is more than just a memory:

re·cord

verb (used with object)

1. To set down in writing or the like, as for the purpose of preserving evidence.

A record of wrongs, therefore, seems to be something we keep in order to remind someone (or ourselves) of what they have done to us. It’s not healthy for us to keep this inside, and it serves no good to bring it up again to the one(s) who hurt you. We don’t need evidence of sin – we have it everywhere we look… What we need evidence of is LOVE. What if we kept a record of rights and continually thought about, talked about, dwelled on all of the GOOD things that have been done to/for us? It may seem like an impossible notion, but it certainly would make for a more peaceful heart.

When we pray for this broken world, we have to remember (me included) that WE ALL are broken and in need of healing. To pray for God to give us clean hearts, pure hands, innocent minds, and the ability to remember love and not pain. It starts with me. and you.