Invited to walk humbly…

Pain is an invitation into a lifestyle of meekness. When your heart is wounded there are two responses that bear fruit, both good and bad fruit, depending on the response. One of those responses can be to assert yourself, protect your honor, and defend your rights. This is the most common response when pain, disapointment, and frustration crosses paths with us. This response is fleshly, earthly, and natural. It is common. The second response is far less common and usually the result of divine influence and supernatural grace of a believers union with Christ. The second response is meekness, humility, and forgiveness. It is taking what is painful or hurtful and placing it at the feet of Jesus and His cross. Placing it there however, is only half of the fruit of the invitation given us by Christ. The harder, more enduring response is to not only place that foul thing at His feet in humility but to then stare at it with Him and let His love envelope the situation, until your heart becomes knit to His. This is the fellowship of His sufferings. This is a small picture of taking up our cross and following hard after Him. It was the joy set before Him to endure the cross, the joy of having a response in humans that would evoke love, tenderness, and gratitude toward Him. Our invitation to forgive and to embrace meekness is to hopefully evoke the same response out of others by our forgiving them, bearing long with them, and loving them in spite of ill-treatment and discouragement. Our invitation to love Him well is the same invitation to forgive others, knowing how much He has forgiven us. We cannot withhold goodness from others if He did not withhold goodness from us. He loves well that we would love well. He truly has shown us a better way.

“Therefore, if you seek me, let these go their way.”   John 18:8