Journal Entry ~ 10/03/18

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5

We know from scripture that we are often so dead in our sin that we are truly blind to it. We simply cannot see what He sees in our hearts, or what others see in us. Our own pride and focus on self blocks our ability to see the truth. People try to point it out to us, but we grow defensive, justifying our reason for feeling the way we do or acting in a certain way.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is how to listen to the truths people were trying to share with me about me. It’s so hard to take those truths because we don’t want to recognize that they are who we truly are. It’s hard to hear the truth about ourselves and it hurts. But think about the flip side - it’s pretty easy to see another person’s faults that they struggle to see. If we are to grow more like Christ, we must take to heart the things people see in us that we can’t see. 

The most common place those truths come out about us are in arguments. When we are angry, our heart pours out of our mouths - it’s when we release those things we’ve been holding in about the other person. The problem is we often don’t say them kindly or gently, so the words hurt even more, but the words coming out of our mouths in an argument are truths - they’re often what we’ve been feeling for a long time about the other person, and have been stuffing away. Those words are how we’re viewing the other person, what we see in them that they cannot see.

Consider conflicts or arguments that you’ve had over the years with people you know well in life. The things they’ve said to you in anger are truths about you. The problem is we get defensive and try to justify to them why we’ve acted a certain way. We spin it so that it’s the other person’s fault, but we don’t take to heart what is said. 

What if we stopped and listened to those truths?  What if we heard those people who know us best?  What if we allowed those difficult people in our lives reveal to us the parts of our hearts that we cannot see ourselves?  God loves us even when we’re so dead in our trespasses that were blind to it, but He loves us enough to rescue us from our sin so He puts difficult people in your life to show you what you cannot see. Don’t look at the difficult people as the problem that God needs to fix, look at the difficult people as God’s solution to your problem that He’s trying to fix. 


Press on ~ you are loved 💗

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