Daily Devotions

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  Luke 23:34

The powerful love and forgiving power of God is breathtaking.  Who else but Jesus, beaten, humiliated, hung on a cross, could nonetheless speak words of understanding and forgiveness for the very ones who crucified him?  And Jesus was right – they didn’t know what they were doing. They had missed the point of his ministry.  They had seen Jesus only as a threat without seeing the promise of his love. They didn’t have all the information.

Often the unjust, destructive criticism that we hear from others is based on misunderstanding or misinformation.  The criticism we hear from others, or the criticism we find ourselves voicing, can be totally off base because of the limited perspective we have on what is really true.  So what do we do with that?

We remember what we have heard the past few days and decide that the answer is not to engage in a battle to clear up a misunderstanding by forcing someone else to see things from our point of view.  The answer isn’t to change the other, but to maintain a focus on our part.  Just as someone else might not know the whole truth, neither do we.

Rather than fighting to change another’s point of view, why not take some time to try to see what is happening from that person’s point of view.  What happens when we place ourselves in the other person’s shoes?  Does that change our way of looking at things?  Does that make it possible for us to be forgiving and understanding in a way that simply isn’t possible if we only stubbornly hold to our own view?

Can we look behind the words and see the person?

Jesus looked down from the cross and saw broken people, lashing out against the enemy that really lived only in themselves.  Jesus met hate with love.  Always with love.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, you are the source of understanding and forgiveness.  You are able to see beneath the hard surfaces of our projected images to the wounded reality within.  May we see those around us with the same eyes, opening our hearts to new possibilities of forgiveness, understanding and love.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

This entry was posted on February 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.