Let Go!

Quick note regarding identity. I was watching Dumbo with some kids today, and I was really struck by one particular quote. The elephants were gossiping about Dumbo and how humiliated they were that he had become a clown. They haughtily announced that "From now on, he is no longer an elephant." I was stunned at the sheer stupidity of that statement. What?! How could they just sort of decide that Dumbo was no longer an elephant? He is an elephant. He just is! You can't will him to be something else. It occurred to me that we let people redefine us in ways that just don't make sense. You're a loser. You're uncool. You're incompetent. Whatever it is that people say about us, that's just silliness! They can't define us! Only God can do that, and he's already given us a pretty stellar definition. I mean, literally. He tells us we can (and should) shine like stars.

Anyway, what I wanted to blog about today was forgiveness. Ugh. That's one that I struggle with on a pretty regular basis. To be completely transparent for a sec, I know that one of my big issues with forgiveness is that I tend to struggle with insecurity. The grudges I hold onto most tightly are those that somehow make me feel less than. Like if someone rejects me, or belittles me. I know that the Bible makes it clear that unforgiveness is wrong, but I have such a hard time letting go.

God's been speaking to me a lot about unforgiveness over the years, and he's slowly revealing to me that I'm not the judge. There was a season where that made me really angry. In my frustration, I imagined the crime scene. I was so angry that I was crying as I tried to show God... "Look! Look! There's my blood! I was hurt... I was so hurt, and I'm still scarred. I may never recover. I demand justice! A life for a life, Lord. Mine's been ruined, the evidence is before you, and you just ignore it!" God, in his wisdom and love, pointed to the crime scene in my mind and told me to look again. As I looked, he opened my eyes and I saw that it wasn't my blood after all. It was Jesus's blood all over that place. It was Jesus who was wounded, not me, not really. The people who hurt me were really hurting Jesus. After all, "whatever you did for the least of these... you did for me" (Matt 25:40). And I've hurt Jesus, too.

I've tried to use Jesus as my example. He didn't wait until it stopped hurting to forgive those who hurt him. While he was still on the cross, he asked God to forgive us. God's been telling me to pray for those who have hurt me. It's so funny... I often go to God and really doubt the power of prayer, but as soon as I open my mouth to bless those who've hurt me, I find myself snapping it shut. Apparently, there's a part of me that whole-heartedly believes in the power of prayer. After all, if it were just words, why would it be so hard to pray blessings on my enemies? I find myself afraid that God really will honor my request that he forgive them for what they've done. God spoke to me so clearly this morning about that. He told me that vengence is his, and that he will in love and justice administer whatever punishment is deemed necessary by his perfect measurement. He's already decided what will be done. He told me that when I pray, I'm not changing his heart. I'm changing mine.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we, as a body, stopped allowing anything at all to get in the way of the unity that Christ so desperately wanted us to have? He wanted us to be one as he and his Father are one. What if we all decided to release and throw down before the cross the evidence of the crimes committed against us and let God be the judge?