Agree with your adversary quickly . . . ‹ Matthew 5:25

From June 30th reading from My Utmost for My Highest. [ http://utmost.org/do-it-now/], Oswald Chambers writes:

In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, “Do what you know you must do— now. Do it quickly. If you don’t, an inevitable process will begin to work ’till you have paid the last penny’ ( Matthew 5:26) in pain, agony, and distress.”

I have been thinking a lot lately about disagreements with others and how we handle them.

It seems that the easiest way is to handle them so in the way we are most accustomed. If we come from a family of lawyers, we might sue or seek legal mediation. If we come from a culture of fighting, how easy it would be to take outside and settle it by brute force. If we come from an environment of shame and hiding, we may prefer not saying anything, closing our eyes, retreating and just waiting for it all to fade, pass, and hopefully be forgotten.

In a way, those modes are the “easiest” way of handling matters. Someone wins. Someone loses. But someone and maybe both parties are also hurt — and there is no reconciliation. There is only right and wrong seen from a personal, subjective point of view guarded carefully and never truly put to rest.

But God through Jesus calls us to another way. To forgive.

In every situation, there is plenty of blame to go around. There is plenty enough hurt to be pounded into another’s heart. And blaming, accusing, hurting, pointing fingers and guarding one’s own territory just leads to fences which become walls which become silos of isolation.

Jesus calls us to forgive because that is the only way to break down barriers that keep us separated from one another. We can’t love unless we extend forgiveness. We can’t feel loved unless we receive forgiveness. Forgiveness says that you, I, we as a relationship are more important than being right.

So as not to say that I’ve got this under wraps and know to how approach my own adversaries in a neat, tidy, squeaky clean fashion — let me admit outright that this is something I’m working. I say working on because the process — the many steps and paths — of forgiveness is painful. It’s not easy. Because when I’m working on reconciling, it requires that I take time to understand myself first. It’s not solely about the persons on the other side of the fence; it’s as much about me. It takes an enormous amount of soul work and self-examination and vulnerability. It means being raw and honest with myself. It requires taking me to the point where my right to who I am is not as important and valuable as the relationship. It demands God digging around in me to show that his greatness, his spaciousness gives me the capacity to allow differences to be just that: differences and not condemnations or judgment or expectation.

If I want to love someone else, I have to love for them for who they are and not for who I want them to be. I cannot want them to my image of them, which would in effect be an image of myself. If I have to insist on being right all the time and not forgiving, my world becomes a very lonely place.

Would we make it our mission to not have adversaries but instead work on restoration

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