"Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing of blessing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded [Exodus 16]. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that he may make it a blessing to others."
- Oswald Chambers
Sunday, December 9, 2007
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.This is such great wisdom from our Lord.
- Matthew 18:15
Yet it's hard wisdom. It's so much easier to go to the sympathetic ear and knowing nod of a compassionate (and biased in your direction) friend then to go to the one who has offended you.
But look at the payoff of the more difficult route! "You have gained your brother", and pleased the Lord as well!
There is so much destruction hatched in whispered conversations in hallways, in vent-sessions over coffee, in partially-veiled blog posts, in the flaming "press-send-before-I-change-my-mind" email. And there is so much resentment and bitterness brewing (a bitter stew that!) in the hearts of those of us who have gone the other way and left all the necessary words unsaid.
Go to your brother. Be reconciled. Gain each other! This is the wisdom of our Lord, and it is very good.
"Having resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die" -- Malachy McCourt
(thanks to the Anchoress for this quote).
