Tag Archives: Reconciliation

Chapter-a-Day

The “Boney Finger”

2 Comments

The "Boney Finger" (CaD Jer 12) – Wayfarer

Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
You have planted them, and they have taken root;
    they grow and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
    but far from their hearts.
Jeremiah 12:1b-2 (NIV)

Allow me to begin my post this morning with a confession. I’m not the best at picking up after myself. Wendy has often commented that she always knows where I am because I leave a trail of things laying around wherever I’ve been.

There is a lot of truth to what she says.

Along my life journey, I have observed it to be common for individuals to speak of others in broad, extreme generalities. This happens on multiple levels. I see it in the most intimate of interpersonal relationships as Wendy and I will, in our frustration, point out what the other “always” or “never” does whether it is in reference to a self-righteous accolade of what one does (for the other, of course) or pointing out with accusation what the other fails to do (for the accuser). My maternal grandparents used to call this particular form of marital accusation “pointing the boney finger.”

I find this “all-or-nothing” mentality arising regularly in conversation, especially when it comes to religion, politics, and cultural tension. The “boney finger” reaches out to paint a broad swath of humanity (often referred to as “those people”) in the extreme generalities of “always” and “never” or their synonymous counterparts. It hear it from individuals on both sides of various issues. I hear it from politicians on both sides of the aisle. I hear it from media on both sides of the political spectrum.

One of the unique characteristics of Jeremiah’s prophetic writings is the way that he unashamedly voices his complaints to God. While most of the prophets simply record the message God downloaded to them, Jeremiah is having a conversation. He typically doesn’t hold back.

In today’s chapter, Jerry is feeling the heat. In yesterday’s chapter, God reveals to the prophet that the people of a place called Anathoth were threatening to kill him if he didn’t shut his prophetic mouth. He begins today’s chapter with a complaint to God about “all” the faithless prospering and living at ease. He claims that God is “always” on these people’s lips but not in their hearts. Jerry’s solution is a very human one: “God, can you just make them go away.”

God’s response to Jeremiah could not have been heartening to the prophet. He begins by basically saying, “If you think it’s bad now, then fasten your seatbelt. It’s only going to get worse.”

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I realized that it shouldn’t surprise me that God told Jerry it would get worse. I have observed that the the attitudes and vocabulary of extreme generalities does not serve the cause of reconciliation, peace, or love. Rather, it serves to entrench people in their opposition of others, feed differences between individuals, and reinforce one’s self-righteous contemptuousness and bluster.

Which brings me back to Wendy, the person whom I love most. The attitudes and vocabulary of extreme generalities the we can (and do) throw at one another in our frustration could easily drive a wedge of bitterness and resentment between us. I have observed many spouses who end up in places of alienation as the boney fingers of “always” and “never” point ceaselessly at one another.

The antidote that Wendy and I have found is in learning to meta-communicate. In other words, let’s talk about how we’re talking to each another. In doing so, we have to be willing to step back from the line we have drawn in the relational sand. After a few deep breaths we come to admit that my boney finger accusations are coming out of my own frustration, anger, and resentment. We concede that our “always” and “never” is unfair despite the measure of truth we feel underneath it. We both acknowledge our love for one another and our desire for good for one another and our relationship. At that point, we can typically embrace the desire and commitment to modify our words or behavior for one another.

And, it works because we make sure it works both ways. Whether talking about interpersonal relationships or larger group relationships, I’ve observed that if only one side of the relational equation is expected to learn, communicate, step back, admit, concede, acknowledge, desire, commit, and modify, then any kind of reconciliation and mutually beneficial relationship is doomed. It takes two to Tango.

Which means, you’ll have to excuse me, I have a few things to pick-up before I enter my day! 😉

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Sad Endings

2 Comments

Whoever would foster love covers over an offense,
    but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
Proverbs 17:9 (NIV)

I have been blessed with many great friends across this earthly journey. I consider them a huge part of the reason I am where I am on Life’s road. Even though our respective paths in life led us to different places, there are a number of friends that I can call at any moment and we can pick up right where we left off as if no time had passed and there was no distance between us. As I look back, however, I can also recount friendships that were important and special during a particular stretch of the journey, and then they ended.

In most of these cases, not all, there were things that I said, things I did, or things that I didn’t say or do, which offended or hurt my friend. In at least one instance, my friend repeatedly declined to tell me what it was that I had done to cause such pain. In every instance, my attempts at reconciliation in these friendships were rebuffed. Even ten, twenty, thirty years later, I still feel sad when I think about each one.

Jesus was adamant that His followers practice forgiveness. It was non-negotiable. When asked by Peter if forgiving a person who wronged you seven times was a righteous thing to do, Jesus doubled down and instructed Pete to forgive seventy-times-seven. The hyperbole was the point. Forgiveness is to be on-going and never-ending. Jesus then provided the example as He hung on a cross and said of His executioners: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”

In today’s chapter, one proverb states that love “covers over” an offense. I couldn’t help but think of an old piece of furniture that is dinged and scratched up with constant use over time. A little sandpaper and a fresh coat of paint make it new again. The scratches and dings are covered over and forgotten.

The proverb goes on to state that “repeating a matter” separates friends. In this contrasting situation, there is no sanding over the scratches and no fresh coat of paint. One friend wants the other friend to view every scratch and see every ding, every time, and be continually reminded that they are there and not going away. There is no forgiveness, just power and leverage, and shame, and the continuation of relational pain.

I’ve come to realize that a relationship can not long survive in such circumstances, at least not with any degree of health. It is not a reciprocal, life-giving relationship.

In the quiet this morning, I begin my week thankful for friends both past and present. I’m thankful even for those who were friends for a season. The end of those relationships, with all their sadness, don’t take away the tremendous, positive impact those friends made in my life during that season. And, who knows? Perhaps reconciliation will yet occur down the road. I hope so.

Have a good week, my friend.

Chapter-a-Day

Victim of My Own Poison

Leave a comment

So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai.
Esther 7:10 (NIV)

I once had a person who told me they were angry with me. I had done something to offend, and the person confessed that they knew I had no idea what I had done to hurt them so deeply. I asked what I had done and sought to reconcile, but they chose to not to tell me. Sometime later, I made another appeal and asked the person to share with me what I had done. Again, they chose not to do so.

Two cannot be reconciled if one is unwilling to do so.

Along my life journey, I have encountered many individuals who hold on to their anger, their grudges, their hatred, and their judgments of others. Typically, I find that underneath it all lies a spiritual, relational, and/or emotional wound. The wound often remains carefully hidden beneath all the bitterness and rage. If the wound is not addressed the destructive emotions remain.

I have observed that anger, hatred, grudges, and vengeance are spiritually dangerous things. It has been said that harboring them is like drinking a cup of poison yourself and expecting that it will somehow kill your enemy.

In today’s chapter, the plot twist is downright Shakespearean. Haman’s plot to kill Mordecai and all of the Hebrews is uncovered. Ironically, Haman is impaled on the very pike he had erected for the impaling of his enemy, Mordecai. He allowed himself to drink from the poisonous cup of anger, resentment, bitterness, and rage for so long that he became its victim.

This morning I find myself praying for the person I mentioned at the beginning of this post, as I do whenever that person comes to mind. Perhaps someday the time will be right and they will be ready to talk things out. I hope so. I also find myself taking an internal inventory of my own wounds and examining my own levels of anger, resentment, bitterness and the like. I don’t want to harbor such things lest I find myself the victim of my own internal poison.

Chapter-a-Day

Seasonal Companions

3 Comments

My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)
Colossians 4:10 (NIV)

“There are friends who are friends for a season, and there are friends who are friends for life.” Thus said a  wise woman to me while I was a Freshman in college. It was the first time I remember really thinking about the purpose and tenure of friendship in life’s journey.

Everyone knows that Jesus had twelve disciples, but Luke records that there was a wider circle of seventy-two disciples that Jesus sent out (Luke 10:1). Among the twelve it was only Peter, James, and John that Jesus called out to join Him when He was transfigured, when He raised Jairus’ daughter, and when He was in His deepest despair in Gethsemane. Like most of us, Jesus had concentric circles of relationship from the intimacy of His inner circle of three to the wider and less intimate relationships He had with the twelve, the seventy-two, and an even larger group of 500 followers to whom He appeared after His resurrection.

Along my life journey, I’ve had a number of friends, mentors, and protégés who became part of my “inner circle” during a particular stretch. Looking back, I observe a certain ebb and flow of pattern and purpose in relationships. As the wise woman stated, some paths converge for a season and then organically lead in opposite directions. Conflict, sadly, severed some relationships. In a few cases, I’ve realized it’s best to leave be what was. In others, reconciliation brought differing degrees of restoration. There is longing to experience reconciliation in yet others when the season is right. Then there are a few in which time ran out, and only memories both bitter and sweet will remain with me for the rest of my earthly journey.

Most readers of Paul’s letters skip through the personal greetings with which he typically tagged his correspondence at the beginning and/or end. This morning, it was one of these oft-ignored greetings at the end of the chapter that jumped off the page at me. Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, sends his greetings to the believers at Colossae. There is a back story there.

Mark, otherwise known as John Mark, had been a boy who was part of Jesus’ wider circle of followers. Mark’s mother was a prominent woman who also followed Jesus and likely supported His ministry financially. When Peter escaped from prison it was to the house of Mark’s mother that Peter fled. It was Mark’s cousin, Barnabas, who brought the enemy turned believer, Saul (aka Paul) into the fold of Jesus’ followers. Barnabas and Mark were part of Paul’s inner circle on his first missionary journey.

Then, it all fell apart.

In the middle of the journey, Mark left Paul and Barnabas and went back home. Paul felt abandoned and betrayed. Years later when it came time to make a return journey, Barnabas wanted to take Mark along. Paul, still angry that Mark wimped out and abandoned them, would have none of it. There was a big fight. There was a bitter separation. Paul went one way with Silas. Barnabas went the other way with Mark. The season of Paul, Barnabas, and Mark was over.

As Paul writes his letter to the Colossians it has been many years since the conflict with Barnabas and Mark. Paul is in prison and is nearing the end of his life. Mark is with him. We don’t know how the reconciliation happened or what brought them back together again, but Mark is there sending warm greetings through Paul. It’s nice to know that sometimes in this life we get over our conflicts. We let go of the past and embrace the present. Seasons of friendship can come back around.

In the quiet this morning I’m looking back and thinking of all the companions I’ve had along my journey. I’m whispering a prayer of gratitude for each one brought to my life and journey, despite where the ebb and flow of relationship may have led. And, in a few cases, I’m praying for the season when the journey might lead divergent paths back together, like Paul and Mark.

Chapter-a-Day

Expanding My View of “All Things”

Leave a comment

For in him all things were created:things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

For God was pleased to have all his fullnessdwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven….
Colossians 1:16-17;19-20 (NIV)

Last fall I stumbled onto a book entitled Factfulness by Dr. Hans Rosling. A swedish medical doctor who has spent his life serving on the front-lines of disease around the world, Dr. Rosling and his team have observed that most human beings have a completely incorrect view of the world. He lays out his case using readily available facts and statistics from reliable sources and a short quiz he has administered to tens of thousands of educators, politicians, and corporate executives around the world over many years. Our world views, he says, are stuck in the early twentieth century while the world itself has rapidly progressed. Chimpanzees randomly choosing the answers to his multiple choice quiz score higher than  most “educated” human beings. I highly recommend you read the book. It has been a game changer for me.

Dr. Rosling’s insights about our world have coincided with a shift in my spiritual world-view in recent years.

For most of my spiritual journey, the theological institutions and brands of Jesus’ followers of which I have largely been a part have been primarily focused on the spiritual salvation of individuals. As I have read through and studied God’s Message time and time again I have observed that this is not incorrect or inappropriate. Jesus Himself made this plain in a verse referenced for many years in football end zones everywhere:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 (NIV)

What if, however, the focus on the spiritual salvation of individuals has had a corollary effect on my view of creation? The earth is a terrible place from which we must be saved. The world is going to hell and we must escape it. Temporal, earthly things are not important. It is getting as many souls to heaven that’s the priority by instilling a message of the condemnation of this evil world and fear of eternal damnation.

And yet, as I wrote in my post the other day, the prayer Jesus taught us is about bringing the Kingdom to earth, not the other way around. In today’s chapter Paul makes it clear that Christ is not only the agent of creation, but the cosmic, eternal force that holds all things together. Paul goes on to state that Christ’s mission was that through him would come the reconciliation of all things. He doesn’t say the reconciliation of all people, but the reconciliation of all things in both heaven and on Earth.

Dr. Rosling has been expanding my view of the Earth. While there are still many problems to be addressed, we have made incredible progress over the past century and life is better on Earth than it ever has been. And, despite the fear tactics of media trying to keep your attention (so they can charge advertisers for it), it’s getting better at a rapid rate.

At the same time I feel Holy Spirit expanding my view of eternity, the Cosmos, and this Great Story. I perpetually hear myself being called away from my own ego. If I am to be one with Christ as Christ is one with the Father and the Spirit, and if in Christ all things hold together and all things are reconciled, then in Christ I am part of a bigger picture than I’ve ever considered. Forgive me, I haven’t laid hold of it and in the quiet I find myself struggling to articulate it. Suffice it to say that I feel myself called “further up and further in” and I’m more excited than ever to follow and experience where it all leads. It is a faith journey, after all.

Chapter-a-Day

Return

2 Comments

Return, O faithless children,
    I will heal your faithlessness.
“Here we come to you;
     for you are the Lord our God.”
Jeremiah 3:22 (NRSVCE)

I recall an episode with one of our daughters a number of years ago. The details of the episode are irrelevant. Our daughter had placed a considerable amount of relational distance between herself and me. She made some choices that she assumed would not make me very happy, and she basically hid from me for a period of time.

When things were eventually revealed I was, admittedly, upset. My anger, however, was not so much with the choices she feared would upset me as it was with the fact that she felt she must hide and distance herself from me.

“When have we ever been unable to talk things out?”
“When have I ever been unreasonable?”
“When have I ever demanded my own way of you?”
“When have I not allowed you to make your own choices?”
“What must you think of me that you can’t be honest with me?”
“Do you honestly think I would reject you?”
“Do you not realize how much I love you?”
“Do you honestly think my love for you is so conditional?”

These are the questions that plagued me. The injury I felt ultimately had less to do with the choices she had made, for they affected me very little. The injury I felt had more to do with the relational choices   between her and me. They affected me deeply. I love her so much.

Eventually, we talked. We reasoned. There were injuries and misunderstandings that lay underneath the surface. I am not a perfect parent. She is not a perfect child. We slogged through the hard stuff. We forgave. We reconciled. We restored. We learned valuable lessons about ourselves and each other in the process. We let go of what was behind and pressed forward. Old things pass away.

In today’s chapter, Jeremiah’s prophetic poem is about a heavenly father’s frustration with wayward Israel and wayward Judah. Anger and frustration are present, but ultimately there is simply a call to return, to come home, to be reconciled, and for relationship to be restored.

“Return” is a recurring theme throughout the Great Story. Jesus took it to a new level in the beautiful parable of the Prodigal son. Jesus would experience the theme interpersonally in Peter’s denial and ultimate restoration on the shores of Galilee. It is a human story and a Spirit story. We all experience it in various forms both relationally and spiritually in our own respective journeys.

This morning in the quiet I am thinking about the theme of “return” in my own multi-layered experiences across 50-plus years. I’m thinking about my own wayward actions as a son of my parents. I’m thinking about my experiences as a father. I’m thinking about my own prodigal stretches in life when I walked in the shoes of my own daughter; When I made the same mistaken projections and misguided choices.

It’s easy to read God’s Message and to feel the weight of a Father’s frustration so acutely as to miss the heart and the hurt of a loving parent aching for His child to return. Jesus came to recalibrate our thinking and to reconcile us to God…

“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’

“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.”

Return. The Father is waiting.

Chapter-a-Day

The Messiness of Family

2 Comments

The Josephites—Manasseh and Ephraim—received their inheritance.
Joshua 16:4 (NRSV)

Family is messy.

We all have ideals of a nuclear family that remains in-tact and everyone gets along in peace and loving-harmony through the generations. The reality is that few of us are blessed to experience anything near idyllic. It is true that our society today has experienced more and more fracturing and blending of families. I have a divorce decree in the file cabinet next to my desk as a testament to that reality. That does not, however, mean that family was less messy in an age when social, religious and cultural constraint held families locked together in tenuous unions.

As I have dug into my family history I have discovered that the messiness that results from our human flaws and frailties is universal through the generations. Underneath the stoic glares in the black and white photographs of our forebears, our family histories are rife with illegitimate children, children born out-of-wedlock, couples who hurt one another body and soul, parents who marred their children emotionally and spiritually, and a host of other injuries we flawed human beings foist upon one another out of a diverse host of motivations. It used to be that these things were buried, covered over, ignored, and only hinted at in whispered conversations. Most of them are forgotten and lost with history. It doesn’t change the fact that family is messy.

Under the stoic, ancient legal text of today’s chapter we find a reminder of the messiness of family. The 12 tribes of Israel were sons born from four different mothers. Two of the mothers were sisters, and the other two mothers were their handmaidens. Talk about messy, blended family.  The ten elder sons of Jacob (a.k.a. Israel) hated their young half-brother, Joseph.  They were jealous of their father’s love and favoritism (Favoritism? More messiness!) for the baby of the family. So they threw him in the bottom of a well, sold him into slavery and then told their father that he was dead. Joseph ends up in Egypt where he rises from slavery into power and is used by God, many years later, to save his birth family from famine (and inspire a Broadway musical that would resurrect Donny Osmond’s career). Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim, as his own. They are grafted into the family and given Joseph’s portion of the family inheritance.

Today’s chapter is the fulfillment of Joseph’s sons receiving their share of the family inheritance. Under the legal property description of todays chapter is a family history of deceit, polygamy, jealousy, sibling rivalry, favoritism, violence, and disregard for human life. It is also, however, a story that is ultimately about divine providence, purpose, reconciliation, forgiveness, and redemption.

Today I am reminded of the messiness of family and the misery we so often inflict on those to whom we are closest on this earth. I am equally reminded that God is a master story-teller who seeks to weave the broken threads of family together with His themes of purpose, reconciliation, forgiveness, and hope. For those willing to seek Him, there is redemption to be found in the messiest of families.

Chapter-a-Day

The Mediator

1 Comment

source: eulothg via Flickr
source: eulothg via Flickr

If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
Job 9:33-34 (NIV)

There is a line that exists somewhere between despair and self-pity, between honest expression of negative emotion and the self-centric surrender to it. The former is a sincere processing of the emotions in an effort to progress through to a place of understanding. The latter is stagnation and wallowing in the emotions as a means towards self-gratifying pity of self and others.

In today’s chapter, Job is sinking deeper into despair. Job feels condemned and judged by God, but I find that he himself has already tried, judged, and condemned God in his own mind:

  • God is so great as to be inconsiderate.
  • God is so lofty as to be unconcerned.
  • God is so aloof to the point of injustice.
  • God has already tried, judged, executed perverted justice on Job.

Job feels shunned, alienated, and condemned by a distant and impersonal Creator. In his despair he laments that he has no mediator to stand in the gap, to bring he and God together, and to remove God’s rod of wrath and condemnation. In this cosmic plea Job ushers us all to the universal human point: we someone to reconcile us to God. Job’s cry now lifts us out of the momentary circumstances of human suffering into the eternal theme of God’s story. Job speaks out of the depths of recorded human history for all of us who have despaired and felt alienated, shunned, and condemned by the one we perceive to be a distant, uncaring God.

If we are willing to progress through our pain and despair to a place of understanding, we discover God’s answer born in a manger, subjected to unjust suffering, condemned to an unjust death, executed on a cross, and raised to Life. The one who bridges the distance and stands in the gap to bring us and God together.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

Chapter-a-Day

Clean Hands, Clear Conscience

4 Comments

Pope Benedictus XVI
Pope Benedictus XVI (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Now testify against me in the presence of the Lord and before his anointed one. Whose ox or donkey have I stolen? Have I ever cheated any of you? Have I ever oppressed you? Have I ever taken a bribe and perverted justice? Tell me and I will make right whatever I have done wrong.”

“No,” they replied, “you have never cheated or oppressed us, and you have never taken even a single bribe.”

“The Lord and his anointed one are my witnesses today,” Samuel declared, “that my hands are clean.” 1 Samuel 12:3-5a (NLT)

This past year the world witnessed something it had not seen in hundreds of years as a living pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church retired from the papacy and turned over his office to another. I thought of Pope Bendedict and his successor, Pope Francis, this morning as I read Samuel’s retirement speech as leader and judge of Israel. Reading through the historical narratives of the Judges, it appears that the Judges carried out their national leadership until death much like the leader of the Roman church has done for centuries. To have Samuel retire and transition his leadership and authority to King Saul was something of a unique moment in Israel’s history, as was his retirement speech in today’s chapter.

I found it interesting that Samuel’s first concern with retiring his office was to make sure that he could do so with a clean conscience. He stands before the people and asks any who he has wronged to step forward and make it known so that he might reconcile the matter. When nobody does, he declares “my hands are clean.”

I have worked in the business world for twenty years and have been involved in one form of church leadership or another for over twenty five years. I have met precious few leaders who seem at all concerned with retiring with clean hands. I have met far more men and women whose lives are layered with feelings of guilt, shame, and regrets for past words and actions which haunt them. Key relationships from their past remain broken. In many cases, I observe that they have little interest in washing their hands, but appear to cover the dirt and stink of their past with a spiritual pair of good looking gloves and some cheap perfume.

As I read Samuel’s speech this morning, I felt an intense desire to be like him. I want clean hands and a clear conscience when it comes to my business dealings and relationships. If, like Samuel, I don’t want to face a long line of people bearing witness to the dirt of my life at my retirement party, then I better be careful how I think, speak and act today.

Related articles
Chapter-a-Day

Sometimes, You Have to Go Back

1 Comment

broken chainI am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart.
Philemon 1:12 (NLT)

Sometimes the words are impotent outside the context of the story. Philemon is one of the shortest books in all of God’s Message. It is forgotten. There aren’t a ton of pithy statements worthy of a graphic on Pinterest. It’s not really inspiring in great ways. It’s simply a short letter from one friend and follower of Jesus to another.

But, the little told story behind this brief epistle is nearly Shakespearean.

Paul is in prison. He has been imprisoned for telling others about Jesus and creating a stir wherever he goes. So, he serves his time and shares about his experience on the Damascus road with anyone who will listen. He shows love and kindness to his fellow prisoners.

Enter Onesimus. He is in trouble too. A runaway slave from the town of Colosse, he stole from his master and took off. Both offenses are punishable by death under Roman law. Onesimus runs into Paul and the talk. Paul shares with Onesimus about Jesus and Onesimus chooses to become a follower himself. Then, the realization. The man from whom Onesimus stole and ran is none other than Paul’s good friend, Philemon. Imagine the conversation Paul had with Onesimus:

Paul: Onesimus, you have to go back.

Onesimus: Back? To my OWNER?! The man who considers me his PROPERTY?!

Paul: Yes. You have to go back to him and make things right.

Onesimus: What’s all this talk about if Jesus SETS YOU FREE, YOU’RE FREE INDEED?

Paul: Your soul will not be truly free until you make right what you have wronged.

Onesimus: Do you get it, Paul?! He OWNED me!

Paul: And now that you’ve both taken up your crosses to follow Jesus, you are both owned by God. You are not your own. Neither of you. You’ve been bought with a price: Jesus’ blood. Philemon is now your brother in Christ. You must go back to him and beg his forgiveness.

Onesimus: But, he can have me KILLED!

Paul: Yes. Yes, he can. But, he can also give you what both of your souls truly need. You both need grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The chains that bind you, both you and Philemon, are not physical. Don’t be anxious. I will send a letter with you. Philemon is a brother in Christ. He is a good man, just as you are, Onesimus. He will listen to me. But, make no mistake, my friend. You must go back to Philemon. You must make things right.

I can only imagine the scene when Onesimus arrived back at Philemon’s house and confronts the man who “owned” him, letter from Paul in hand. What were Philemon’s emotions as the sight of the slave who stole from him and ran away? What was his reaction when he reads Paul’s letter to find out that God orchestrated a divine appointment between Paul and Onesimus? What conflict of heart, if any, did Onesimus feel looking into the eyes of a runaway slave and seeing a spiritual brother in Christ for the first time?

Sometimes, you have to go back and confront the past before your future can truly begin.