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Day 17: Compassion

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Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

Day 17: Compassion

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

— Isaiah 30:18

One of the most important things that we suffer from is an incorrect picture of God.  It causes us a lot of anxiety.  We imagine that God is a vindictive God looking to find every fault that we have and eager to destroy us for our sins.  But how opposite is the truth!

When we look at how God responded to the fall of mankind we see a plan that costs Him dearly.  Rather than destroy the sinners he decides to restore them.  Hmmm.  That seems to be the opposite of how many today describe Him.  And the fact that God’s Son gives his life in order for us to be saved touches me deeply.

So when I am hurting I can come boldly or confidently to God because I know he cares for me.  His love is healing.  He has compassion.  He is touched by what we go through.

Knowing I am the recipient of compassion enables me to have compassion for others.  I don’t excuse what is wrong.  But I consider the feelings and thoughts that lead to that action and seek to love them anyway and pray for them.  I hope others will have compassion towards me.  When I open myself to have compassion for others I find forgiveness and my heart begins to heal.

Today I choose to open up my heart towards others because I’m grateful for God’s compassion towards me.

 

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Forgiveness

ForgivenessI’ve been struggling with the concept of forgiveness recently.  I have prided myself on my Christian values and virtues.  I have pursued perhaps to the extreme the concepts of grace and love.  Freely I have received love from God so freely I should give love and forgiveness to others.  But what is they don’t deserve it!

Well one could examine themselves and realize that we don’t deserve the love or the forgiveness of God.  So how can we use that metric as a reason not to love or forgive someone else?  But then what if the person not only doesn’t deserve it but they aren’t even apologizing?  This one really sits awkwardly within my soul.  I recently have been dealing with this situation.  Does God really expect me to forgive someone not only who doesn’t deserve it and hasn’t asked to be forgiven?

Well I thought I’d share a song and a video about forgiveness and see if it inspires you in any direction and I’d love to hear your thoughts about where forgiveness fits in on your journey to worship.  Please write your thoughts in the comment section below.

Here’s the song:

And here’s the story:

Enjoy!

Love you and don’t give up your journey to worship and wellness!

David

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