CWW Week 22 - Day 2 - Breaking The Chain

Theme today is Reconciliation.

Scripture.

Matthew 5:9 (NKJV) 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.”

This verse highlights the value placed on peacemaking and suggests that those who actively seek to foster peace and harmony are recognised as having a special relationship with God.

Yesterday we talked about Breaking The Chain. This centred on the children changing the course set by broken parents.

As I prayed this morning for the Holy Spirit to guide me in todays Daily Check Up, I was prompted to talk about how we deal with a change of heart midstream from the perspective of us as parents.

If we have been on a destructive course and our children and other relationships have been damaged along the way; what can we do to put things right and correct the path?

I am always wishing that I had the realisations I am being shown now when my kids were small. I wish that I was the kind of man I am today back then. As the saying goes; hind sight is a wonderful thing. So what does hind sight show us? It is a clear indication that our character has developed. That we see things differently now than we may have back then.

There’s a back to front kind of perspective about life that I struggle with. Why do we make the biggest decisions of our lives when we are often too immature to make them wisely. Look at getting married and raising a family for example.

I was way too young when I started a family. I was still a child myself. The brokenness of the family I grew up in was the foundation that I built my own family on. I am a living example of the saying, “We model marriage to our children.” I was the product of that modelling as I set the mould for my own daughters.

I have also shared with you that ‘the past is a warehouse for wisdom and not an armoury to store weapons.’

My armoury had to be redesigned as a warehouse for wisdom when I repented and came to Christ. I had to because the weapons I chose from the armoury were largely used on myself to the point of it almost killing me.

Gods grace allows for this conversion from armoury to wisdom warehouse.

I have found that, if it takes twenty litres of paint to paint a picture of your life, that it will take two hundred litres to change that picture. This requires time, effort, patience and much prayer but it can be done.

To start this restoration work we must first turn to God and repent of the life that led us here. We have to get it right with God first and foremost. Once we have done this and prayed for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, we invite the Spirit of God to be our navigator as we continue the journey of reconciliation.

We need God’s help as we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In this we must be ruthlessly honest. The trap here is that we may search for excuses rather than reasons. “ I was a bad father because my father was a bad father,” don’t cut it here. God will show us that how we were parented or neglected may be the reason we behaved badly but it’s not an excuse to continue in that behaviour.

The next step is to go and be reconciled with the aggrieved party. In doing this we must accept full responsibility for what happened and then we must listen carefully as the pain from the other person is expressed. Many will say things like, “I want to apologise for my part in the breakdown.” This is implying that the other person had a role to play too. 

This leaves a void in the reconciliation as you await an apology from them. You are going to reconcile with your own expectation of an apology from them.

Our sincerity is the foundation of this reconciliation for without it there is no solid ground on which to rebuild. If our conscience has been triggered in the breakdown then that’s God’s way of telling us that our conscience has been damaged. It’s His way of using guilt as an indicator of our part in the breakdown. We must absolve that guilt by being honest.

I had to reconcile with my father once and it was a gift. He did have a role to play but I was just there to apologise to him for something I was ashamed of. His response was incredible. He accepted it with grace and I was prepared to leave it at that and allow him to examine it later. But then, after telling me he accepted my apology he asked me why I did what I did. He asked the question and I gave him the truthful answer. ‘You were never there when I needed you most Dad.’ He then cried and admitted I was right and he then apologised to me. Our reconciliation was complete and we both stopped blaming each other.

When we do this we can rid ourselves of the guilt and with an open heart, receive and deal with the pain that caused from the other person. We give them a chance to make a victim impact statement and to feel heard. This offers them an opportunity to see this situation for what it is and to view what part they may have had in it if any.

We must be on the lookout for satan who will try to covert reconciliation into retaliation. The best defence against this is love. We must return serve with love to keep the objective firmly set on reconciliation. I call this playing the higher thought. When someone fires back with a low blow we return with love. Love is the great disarmer.

This does not mean that we become submissive and enable bad behaviour, but it helps us to remember that under any bad behaviour there is a pain that drives it and that pain needs to be cleaned out. We can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there.

Jesus has called on us to be peace makers. We will be called the sons or children of God when we do. God values reconciliation in the extreme. After all He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins so that we might become friends of God.

Jesus made this abundantly clear when he was asked which were the most important commandments.

Matthew 22:37-40 (NKJV):

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus makes it plain that the whole journey of character development, of working on the platform in the non-punitive safety culture is all about love.

Who are our neighbours? They are the people we share life with. Our families are considered our neighbours too.

It’s never too late to start the Journey. Yesterday we spoke of how Bev was handed a huge judgement before her father died thus denying her the chance of an earthly reconciliation. She can still have it however as she turns to the Holy Spirit and accepts God’s assessment of her character. In this she can be reconciled to Him and her earthly father at the same time. God’s character then shines above the darkness that her father died with.

God never wastes a hurt.

Questions.

1. Who is God waiting for you to reconcile with?
2. Can you name that person who comes to mind as you answer this question?
3. Are you able to bring this to God and allow His Spirit to guide you expecting nothing in return?

Prayer.

Dear Lord, Papa God.

My heart is burdened with guilt as I think of the loss of relationships I have caused in my sinful ways. Papa I confess that in my rebelliousness that I damaged others and set them on a course in the wrong direction. Please Lord give me the courage to correct this and return to you with a better character as I pray the serenity prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.”

Have a great day with Jesus.

Graham Hood.