How easily people feel our betrayal

At the completion of the fifth episode of The Chosen, God’s Spirit spoke powerfully to me, “You lack faith and fear too much.”  Yes, it was the conviction of the Spirit.  I was shown by an example, just how unlike Jesus I am.

I was thankful.  I was also shown three salient examples of where others have seen me betray them, and even if I would defend myself, it’s really not my perception that matters.

Too easily we make much ado about something we could ordinarily consider, like Jesus, nothing.

I’m not talking serious issues and saying we should overlook them, but I am suggesting that there are plenty of matters we take issue with that we could forgive.

I’m not saying the significant issues that we ought to gently and respectfully confront.  But we can give grace on so many occasions with people we don’t know well to create a thread of goodwill through our lives.

There is one thing worse than doing this: insisting on our way where it’s possible the other person feels in some way betrayed.

When we insist on our own way, we lack trust in God to provide the way forward, and in doing this, we may set up a feeling of resentment in the other person, who might well otherwise notice the goodness of God in us when we don’t insist on our way.

Sometimes everything in life feels hard.  We might well ask why.  The more we live in the embodiment of trust, the easier life gets.

Photo by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash