Rebuilding the Ancient Ruins

It’s funny how you know a scripture, quote a scripture, but never really connect the dots. This scripture is one of those for me, Matthew 11:28 “Come to me all of you who are struggling and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus offers his yoke to us, his way of life which offers a rest and a peace for our souls. Not only did Jesus tell us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, but He also gave us the two keys to this yoke, gentless and humility.

I guess, what is gentleness? I believed it could be summed up in this way, “inviting and allowing God to carry the burden of bringing justice in your life.” I believe this is what Jesus was referring to in Luke 6:27-30 “Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone hits you on one cheek, offer the other too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. If someone asks you for something, give it to him; if someone takes what belongs to you, don’t demand it back.” God does want to see justice, and God wants to see the wicked punished for their misdeeds, but God also said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” Deuteronomy 32:35. I believe that if we allow God to bring justice, he will, although for our part, we need to be as gentle as Jesus who asked His Father to forgive those that crucified Him.

For many, many years, most of my life infact, I believed that it was my place to correct the wrongs done to me. This became most prominent in the workplace, when someone else claims credit for the work I did, I would be sure to correct any misconceptions. If someone lied about me, I would correct that too. Somehow, though, the burden was heavy, it didn’t help building relationships, and while I did think it was the “right” thing to do, it somehow didn’t feel Christlike, but it had to be, it was justice, and God is a God of justice. Somewhere along the line (and this would only be a few years ago), God revealed the truth to me, and I let go. I didn’t correct the lies, I didn’t correct the misconceptions, I didn’t explain that the project was late because so-and-so was not doing any work. I do slip up, and I still find myself occasionaly trying to incorrect injustice done to me. At first this was actually hard, my insides would churn at the injustice, but I left it to God. After a few months of this, I began to see God bringing about justice, the lies would surface, the truth would come out, and it worked in my favor. So this continued for months, and it became quite fun actually. Let me see what God will do about this one. In a recent project, those that spoke lies about me either: (a) asked to leave the project and were found to be problematic on other projects; (b) left the project and been asked to seek professional help; (c) asked to leave the project, almost quit and brought to the attention of the top executives. God continues to amaze me in how he can turn things around in my favor, if I just let Him. It makes me wonder, how much more is there? How much more can I let go of, this yoke is fanatastic. I’m only touching the tip of the iceberg here, but the little I do taste is great. I love watching and waiting to see how God will handle a situation, He always does.

The Ancients were commended for their faith, and part of that was their gentleness. Many times when reading this story, I thought Isaac was kind of whimpy in this whole situation. Isaac (Genesis 26) was looking for a place to live, and since to Isaac the two things he required for a place to stay were the presence of God and water. So he sought water, each time he would dig a well, God would bless him with water, but the locals claimed it was theirs and took it away. God had blessed Isaac, I’m sure he had a huge crowd with him of servants and animals, he could have easily taken bake the well, besides, it was God’s blessing to Him, and they were lying. Isaac just moved on, dug another well and the same thing happened, “He [Isaac] went away from there and dug another well, and over that one they didn’t quarrel. So he called it Rechevot [wide open spaces] and said, “Because now ADONAI has made room for us and we will be productive in the land.”" (Genesis 26:22+). Isaac wasn’t a whimp, but he knew the power of His God. The story of Abraham and lot is similar in Genesis 13:10.

Paul also urged us, to “let everyone see how reasonable and gentle you are.” (Phillipians 4:4)