Don't Let the Sun Go Down

It's New Year's Day. This is a time to make the world right. This is a time to confess, repent and change. This is a time to listen to others, bury hatches and mend fences. However, in our proud world, it seems people would rather tuck tail and hide from any form of discussion that may be hard and work through conflict. True and important relationships are worth the work. The the fight for goodness, fellowship, and love are at your fingertips if you will just take the time and effort to make it so. Here in this relationship are two (or more) people who are decent human beings with faculties capable of making restoration. Can you see that?

Have ever told yourself the lie that someone isn't worth it? I mean the stress, the high emotions, and the long painful conversation that should happen? Especially in the context of conflict in your close family, Satin himself is whispering in your ear a lie straight from the pit of hell. All people are worth it; especially your children, parents, your spouce's parents, your siblings, even your Aunt Mable once removed for Pete's sake. All are made in the image of God and all have a worth in your life you cannot understand or grasp with your finite mind. When God is doing one thing He is doing a million things. You have no idea how this person is called to bring out the Love of God from out of you; from your faith in the One who can heal all physical and spiritual depravity.

If you are a Christian, you can pull from the very theology you say you live by. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. As you forgive so you will be forgiven in heaven. You, child of the Living God, are missing the blessings that He has in store for you by blocking or quenching this relationship. If God has brought this person into your life, if they have meant anything to you, then you owe it to God, to this fallible person, to your family, and to yourself to reach out to this person. Confess that you have been harboring ill will and hard feelings toward them. Ask forgiveness and place yourself in a position of a humble person who is willing to do what it takes to reach peace harmony and love. That is what you confess you love every Sunday @ church to the God of the universe. It's what you tell God you long for. Do you long for it enough to do the work He's called you to?

So now I hear the objection, as I've heard many a Christian say, "I have to create healthy boundaries from toxic behaviors and stress". Well, then I say to you that you are not living as Christ, His Father, and the Holy Spirit perpetually operate. You are living in defiance to it and claiming yourself more healthy than God himself. I have never seen them give up or give in. I have seen the Father roam through the Garden of Eden calling to a couple who had just defied his perfect authorship and authority in their lives. I heard Him calling in the deepest love. I hear Jesus Christ from the cross call out in agony, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." I see the Holy Spirit mightily working in all our lives, giving us chance after chance. (And then some.)

If you allow discord and disharmony in your family or in the lives of important people in your life; you are deceiving yourself and your happiness that you are trying to create isn't real. You can blame the other person for the long, drawn out drama and hurt, but really it's on your shoulder. You are the one refusing to do the work to create harmony. There often has to be a bit of a battle before freedom can come in any realm of life, and it applies here too.

Now for the one who has been shut out: be prayerful, be patient, be kind in your thoughts of the one who has turned their back on you. In 99% of these cases, both you and your loved one are loving, both sides have made mistakes. (as usual) Both sides are facing the Fiend of Hell. Both of you have been deeply hurt. You question your worth. You don't understand how someone could just live their life without you. You don't understand why they won't respond when you reach out to try to create resolution as you've been instructed in the Bible, through counseling, through common decency. I know. It's hard.

However, you can't make anyone love you, God or peace enough to make this right. You can't have enough conversations to convince them that this relationship is so important not just to you both, but the people around you and the generations of the future. Discord and relationship disruption, like fellowship and love create a ripple effect that will wash through everyone close. They create a wave of surrounding them. But you can't make anyone see that this is wrong. That this should be mended right away. Try to keep quiet, hope and pray. Find other relationships and people you can love and grow with. You can't make them.

For you both: Trust in the Lord for the same reasons you have always trusted Him. He is the One calling each of us to trust Him more. He is the one from the cross who says, "Father Forgive them for they know not what they do". He is that Great Helper who comforts us in our grief. Yes, this is true grief when you grieve someone who is alive but somehow through miscommunication and misunderstanding is now somehow dead to you. Reach out. Mend those fences, break those brick walls that hinder understanding and a TRUE healthy relationship based on the basics of your Christian faith. By His wounds you have been healed and we are called to live and love that way.

He came to give you life and give it abundantly. You have been given a feast in this life called fellowship of the beloved, and you deny access to this feast content to eat stale bread and moldy cheese, calling it healthy boundaries and freedom. See and taste that the LORD is good. Not just good. His ways are immeasurably better. He has more for you than society's healthy boundaries of bile, resentment and unending grudges. Get yourself free. Call someone you love and give them hope. Don't wait. If you are gone today, this may be your last opportunity to give this person love. You can't underestimate the value of closure and peace that reaching out in love can give.