The Business Side of Grace
God is in the business of grace. Part of living under grace
is that we can experience God’s forgiveness. He doesn’t give us a pass on our
sin. Regardless of our transgression he forgives us and wants us change course
and follow the directions of his cleansing word. It is a mighty powerful experience
when you’ve asked for, and been given, the grace of God through forgiveness.
But there is another side to this coin. There are those individuals that you have wronged in your path of sin. Those people don’t’ have the same
attributes of God. They are not all loving or all knowing. They are frail human
beings with feelings. If you’ve trampled someone in your past and owned up to
that before God that is wonderful news. But the ramifications of your sin
towards others is an entirely different matter.
I’m afraid we’ve mistakenly thought that forgiveness by God
alone is enough to settle what we’ve done to others in our paths. Making past
mistakes right involves having a “hat in your hand” attitude toward those you’ve
wronged.
I’ve watched countless folks (myself included) march on
after having God’s forgiveness lavished on them without giving one second of a care about the hurt and
destruction they left in their paths.
Regardless of the time that’s passed, it is never too late
to right a wrong with someone you’ve dealt wrongly with. They might not
actually remember or care that you steamrolled them. But it is likely that it’s
been a festering wound for them that’s never healed.
You can lance those sores and allow them to heal buy telling
them how wrong you were. Ask for their forgiveness. They might not offer that
in return to you. But nonetheless you should make amends however you possible can. Healing will be a process
and can be slow. But the release for both you and those you’ve wronged is nothing
less than a second blast of grace from our good God.
