#031 - Reconciliation - pt. 1

NOVEMBER 2022

At this time, I traveled around doing productions for fundraisers and had the pleasure of meeting various speakers and other influential people. I would have random conversations with the people around me during my travels, mostly while queuing for a buffet. Nothing brings random people together like a trough of food. However, while bellying up to this particular table of wares, I noticed a vibrant character standing next to me. If I searched my memory, I could remember our first conversation, but I was intrigued by her work in California as a lead pastor or head of a church. 

It shames me to say that women are still held in lesser regard than their male counterparts because of some of Christianity’s more archaic and stubborn traditions. Being a pastor at a church in one of the most unfriendly areas of the country for churches made her a heroic figure to me. So we started a conversation, and I told her about my spiritual journey. I ended up gate-crashing a tea party accidentally.

Because our time was cut short, we decided to exchange numbers and meet in Atlanta in a few weeks to continue the conversation. During this conversation, I was challenged to do something that made me rethink my relationships and, more importantly, my attitude about the Christian concept of forgiveness. It made me see that I, like most Christians, have been forgiving those who do wrong to me poorly, and a conversation with her made me realize the importance of what I have named active forgiveness. 

Adventures in Forgiveness

I had this person I worked with for a season who was one of the most miserable human beings with whom I had ever had the privilege of being close acquaintances. This person gave me consistent work, and all I had to do in exchange was show up and not ask questions about the morally questionable things they did and said. To make matters worse, they acted with complete impunity, lacked remorse regarding personal relationships, and flaunted their position and power over those reporting to them. I’m sure everyone has had similar bosses or leaders for whom they have worked. Hopefully not, though!  

It was alright, or I kept telling myself it was okay. I was making money too! That is until all this attention I had seen devoted to destroying others turned towards and against me. In the aftermath, I became very unwilling to forgive and move on for good and justifiable reasons. This has happened so often with churches and Christian organizations that I somewhat became bitter towards others. I had forgiven them, yes. But I was expecting God to rain hellfire and damnation upon my enemies. To see them acting as if nothing happened or simply living their lives makes this feeling fester. It was something that I needed to grow past.

I met Angela and had a conversation I had written about earlier during this time. I was angry and still holding onto a grudge. It was a silent, angry protest against those who had wronged me. I explained my story, and she said something I will never forget.

“It’s not enough to just forgive people,” I remember how happy she was when she said, “You have to reconcile the relationship.”

I became floored. 

Was she saying that I had to rebuild the relationship? Wasn’t that the responsibility of the person who wronged me? Why should I have to do the work here? After all, I could claim I am a victim and be justified. 

But no, she stirred something inside me with those words, and I realized I had been forgiving people incorrectly. Forgiveness is not a forget and walk away. It is a constant pursuit of relational repair. It is a battle between knowing what is right and doing it to those who wrong you. Turning the other cheek in Jesus’ terms is a step in the right direction, but the point of Christianity is to make disciples of Christ as much as it is about forgiveness and doing good. It is why spiritual aptitude tests place people in categories based on the facet of Christianity for which the person is best wired.

When Christians strive towards reconciling and rebuilding damaged and war-torn relationships, we embark on a journey that shows the love of Christ in remarkable ways.      

Chaos is a comin’

Some people have their lives planned out from birth, while others make the plan up as they go along. I can relate to the latter in that I am a person who tends to lean towards chaos. It is not chaos’ fault as if it were a personified entity; if it were, we would feel bad for or pity it. Removed from the chaos that is this ever-changing landscape of humanity, you perhaps can see the traps and pitfalls of a chaotic environment. It is like a hurricane or horrible two-hundred-mile-an-hour tornado that leaves behind a path of destruction. The worst part is that, though the warnings of chaos may be clear, very few heads take cover.

I always think of balancing expectations and how upset I am when my expectations of others aren’t met. But at that same time, perhaps my unrealistic expectations caused me to become upset. When I say upset - I feel an overwhelming disappointment in myself and the situation more than physical pain or emotional damage. This disappointment is the reason for my low expectations from my chaotic life. To expect chaos to respond rationally and purposefully defeats the purpose or nature of chaos. The opposite of chaos is calm or peace to me, which is why I can find calm in an otherwise chaotic and uncertain world. Even when chaos is around, there is always a calm to any storm—the eye of the hurricane.

I believe it boils down to or distills into a life centered on God, and boy, my life was chaotic before I realized this and began to apply it to the foundation of my life. God is like the eye of the storm.

When we sin, we invite chaos into our life. When we choose a path separate from God, the same is true. Fortunately, when we choose this path away from God for those who have strayed, God remains with us. This is unfortunate, too, because I feel pity for having to draw someone else along for the ride. I can hurt myself, but when it becomes a thing that hurts others, then overwhelming guilt (or stirring of the holy spirit to us Christians) quickly makes me not want to hurt anyone anymore. Since God is everywhere, and the holy spirit of Jesus could arrive at any moment, I should feel genuinely guilty when I do something that causes me to stray from this God-centered path. 

I should make up a witty Latin phrase, or perhaps there is one that describes a Deist-centered world or belief that the world revolves around a creator, God, and heavenly father. There is! It fell out of style for heliocentrism, but we Christians should switch back to theocentric thought in this chaotic place we call home. Being a God-centered person helps put into perspective this chaotic life we all live and also helps set the foundation for active forgiveness. 

Whole-hearted forgiveness.

To not forgive or to forgive half-heartedly is not really to forgive at all, and we, as Christians, have the seventy times seventy rule when it comes to Christ-like forgiveness. This is why reconciliation is a better way to describe how intense forgiving is. When I was an account clerk for a summer, I would endlessly reconcile our accounts with our bank to make sure that the money that we thought we had on paper was the money that existed in the real world. Relational reconciliation is getting on the same page or seeing eye-to-eye with the other person, ensuring you are understood and truly forgiven, and reconciling your relational balance sheet. 

What then begins is a journey of small trust being built, and hopefully, if nurtured and properly grown, the relationship will become a nightly waterfall again. Life was not meant to hold grudges, and it is exhausting to do so. Maturity tells me that if I kept a list of everyone and every situation that caused me grief, I would be like Santa Claus pouring over lists of wrongs and rights to determine who deserves my presence this Christmas. I would spend so much time avoiding situations based on relational credit. Oh wait, I do! We all do! This is a natural human tendency for a majority of us. I’ve been in so many social situations that suddenly became awkward and tense because of the wrong person showing up. I’ve been the person showing up, too! More on this one later.

So why live this way? Is it because victimhood is more validating? Yes. When this happens, or someone refuses to move past and try and reconcile, they do a disservice to the other person. When you do not address the tension of the action that led to the need for forgiveness, you hurt the other person more than yourself. This sounds like common sense because it is! But why do people do it if it is common sense and easier than holding a grudge? Why? 

Hollow bastion. 

I know lots of people. I’ve met a lot of earnest and well-meaning individuals. I’ve also seen these earnest, well-meaning, and Christ-centered people do some of the most bizarre things in the name of Jesus and God. I would confront street preachers when I went to Georgia State University and ridicule the environmental impact of paper prayer tracks—endlessly lamenting the cause's effectiveness and the pursuer's inability to secure actual disciples of faith. It boils down or distills into one thing for me: Is it really up to you to guilt trip people into following Jesus? If my convictions are my own, they are not of God, even if they seem so. Even if God seems to ordain an evil situation, God is not evil. The world is what is bad.

You may go to extremes to satisfy your result when you try to save people by any means necessary. You may endlessly crusade towards your righteous goal, leaving a wake of pillaged relationships like villages after barbarians. I’ve heard pastors say before that you can “right” your way out of any relationship. When you have the moral high ground and the sure footing, it is easy to cast stones and win landslide battles. But be careful of ripping the stones you are casting from your own personal foundation, or you may find yourself on sinking sand.

But more on that one tomorrow.