The other day I was reminded once again how important it is to keep short accounts with others. Yet as true as this is, for some reason it seems that it has become a common occurrence in many of our lives to ignore the accounts we build with each other.
I always have said that the way our lives are expressed outside has a lot to do with the way they are lived inside. Take for example the way most of us practice business when it comes to paying others. It is very rare nowadays for people to pay for goods the minute they receive them. This is only expected to be done by the customers and even they are often offered the facility to take a long time to pay for them.
This kind of approach means that debts build up and life becomes very difficult as we are always trying to catch up. The quality of our lives suffer but ultimately it is the richness of our relationships with others that receive the biggest blows. Our time is consumed trying to manage the debt and our focus is more than not always fixed in creating a liberating future where we will hopefully be able to pay for the accounts we have built up in the past. I guess one of the reasons why for so many of us is so hard to see the words of Christ on Matthew 6 where he encourage us to not worry about tomorrow so we can focus on what God is doing right now, fulfilled in our daily experience.
This same picture applies to our hearts and the way we deal with one another. Inevitably in this life of ours we are going to be offended and hurt by others. Being wounded and hurt is not a sin nor is it feeling it and feeling the feelings that come with it. Where things begin to get murky and dark is when we do nothing about it. You see often we believe that avoidance is better than confronting. Many of us have been sold the lie that avoidance will somehow make it go all away but what we don’t realise when we think this way is that avoidance will only allow the debt within and without to grow.
We all know that huge debts often end in bankruptcy with people loosing everything they had. When we ignore the debts we have with others and others have with us we run the risk of running into emotional and spiritual bankruptcy too. Jesus said that if we had something outstanding with someone else it was wise to go and sort that out before we did anything else.
Let us therefore remember not to allow our emotional and spiritual debts with one another to reach the place where they will break us. Instead let us address them while they are small and still have a greater chance to be reconciled. It doesn’t matter if you are owed or you owe. What matters is that one of us at least takes the first step towards reconciliation as this will not only cancel the debt but it will advert much unnecessary suffering and grief on both sides.
May you have a great and debt free week…
-pablo-
Photo by Unknown
