I am weary and it feels like I am failing. When I think that I am going to pass this test, even if I scrape through, I come under such unholy temptation that I have to apply the bible verse:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
In my life experience, this application is frustrating and maddening. It is made harder by the vein busting anger that I am combating in my psyche. Here is why.
My brother, he is the weapon of choice. He is the one used to offend me continually. Over and over for 25 years. This year though, it’s like he has been put on loop, but now I know for certain it is aligned with God’s will. His will to school me on offense and anger.
Even as a child, a teen, an adolescent, an adult; my brother has constantly done wrong on so many levels. It is a curse, I am sure. My father did him wrong and my brother has executed his vengeance in one selfish, purposefully disrespectful way after another. The taking of what’s mine without permission, going through my personal belongings, stealing…I can’t remember how many times and now I have a complex that is causing me to be stuck dealing with anger.
Offense after offense.
My lessons have opened up my eyes to see things as they are, why they happen and how I must be shaped by it. For to be continually offended by him means I am expected to stop being angry at him. God is shaping me His prophet, to not be triggered by ‘anger’ when offended. I think I have been at grade 1 dealing with the issues, insults, disregard and thievery from my brother all my life.
Nonetheless, I am working hard not to react, not to hold a grudge, not to get on the bitter side of things. My weapon for coping has been praise and worship; I fill my house for hours with singing and worshipping, praying and more praying.
I must sometime soon graduate this school of offense and anger.
Some of you can understand the kind of situation I am highlighting today.
God is cleansing my heart in earnest as I am being made ready for kingdom duty. But Lord, my God, the process if degrading, trying and difficult.
My focus:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; …
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you
But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Copyright © 2015 · All Rights Reserved · Denise N. Fyffe
Revealing the Christian Life Ministry 