God’s Way of Healing Our Broken World
Daily Scripture
Isaiah 55:1-9
1 All of you who are thirsty, come to the water!
Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
2 Why spend money for what isn’t food,
and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me and eat what is good;
enjoy the richest of feasts.
3 Listen and come to me;
listen, and you will live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful loyalty to David.
4 Look, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a prince and commander of peoples.
5 Look, you will call a nation you don’t know,
a nation you don’t know will run to you
because of the LORD your God,
the holy one of Israel, who has glorified you.
6 Seek the LORD when he can still be found;
call him while he is yet near.
7 Let the wicked abandon their ways
and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the LORD so that he may have mercy on them,
to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.
8 My plans aren’t your plans,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
9 Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my plans than your plans.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
When we begin thinking about the process of forgiving in families (and all human relationships), it’s easy to see it as simply a “mind game.” But forgiveness is much more than just a sociological way for people to get along. The prophet we’d call “second” Isaiah suggested that it is not “natural” at all. The prophet’s thinking began with God, not humans. Our God, he said, is “generous with forgiveness,” which makes God’s ways and plans “higher” than ours.
- Theologian and psychologist Lewis Smedes wrote, “Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply…. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love’s power to break nature’s rule.” * How does God’s role in “inventing” forgiveness make clear that forgiveness is ultimately “supernatural”?
- So, forgiveness takes faith. “We want to decide what is right and wrong for ourselves…. Neither do we wish to be told that something is good for us when it looks as though it is going to take a lot of effort and may bring us some pain. We want to… have God serve us, supplying our needs as we dictate. Faith always involves letting go of secure footholds and (apparent) certainties to do things God’s way.” ** What makes faith that God knows best vital as we wrestle with forgiveness?
Prayer
O Jesus, I’m not God, but you can shape me to be more and more like you. I offer my life to your re-shaping hand, because in the end your forgiving way of life is the best way to live. Amen.
GPS Insights
Lydia Kim
Lydia Kim, who serves as a pastor of Connection and Care at Resurrection Leawood, wrote today's Insights. An avid believer that growing in faith pairs well with fellowship and food, she is always ready for recommendations on local restaurants and coffee shops.
Using Pastor Adam’s metaphor of a backpack, I spent years carrying rocks, struggling to let go of stones, big and small (and generational), that I carried in my heart from my family. The weight of those rocks got so heavy that it shaped how I looked at all my relationships. It led to distrust, and I pretended to be someone I’m not.
Something inside me, which I now know to be the Holy Spirit, whispered that if I wanted healthier relationships, I’d need to understand why these things happened in my family. So, I started studying child development, psychology, and family systems. Amid my educational journey, I went to therapy. I learned about the consequences of carrying that backpack of rocks with me, the freedom of letting go, and what to do when I tried to pick those rocks back up again.
I believe God took the trauma and loss my family experienced and, through my studies and therapy, helped me wring something good out of it. Forgiveness allowed me to build healthier relationships built on trust and compassion in my family and beyond. I know it would not have been possible without God because I was used to carrying that backpack of rocks like a badge of honor. It took God intervening for me to see that there was a better way.
What are you carrying today? What would it be like to take a few rocks out of your backpack until you’re free? I pray that you will take that next step and let God teach you what “generous forgiveness” looks like in your life.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, p. xvi.
** John N. Oswalt, Isaiah. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, p. 604.
