On the Pursuit of Reconciliation

One of the all too common occurrences in human relationships is breakups. No, not the high school kind where, “It’s not you, it’s me, but let’s still be friends.”

I am talking about the real kind, where lives are uprooted, families are decimated, friendships are destroyed. It’s the kind where hurt reigns, not for a few days or even weeks, but for months and years.

Today, I take the opportunity to remind you that it is never too soon to seek to repair and restore damaged relationships.

Taking time to process the hurt is most often just taking time to sit on God’s throne in God’s place and meditate on how unworthy you were of the dastardly treatment you think you received, and then to pass judgment complete with appropriate punishment—namely the withdrawing of your affection.

However, those who sit at the foot of the cross are reminded that whatever dastardly thing might have been thrust upon us is nowhere near the sin that we have committed before God.

And with God, there is no atonement by time or by isolation or withdrawal. In fact, the passing of time will only harden our conscience, and deepen our alienation. It will not lessen our guilt before God, and it will not begin the process of forgiveness and reconciliation.

In the temptation to break relationships, we sit either in one seat or the other, either on the throne of God judging ourselves as too good or at the foot of the cross recognizing ourselves as far worse.

Only one position can bring hope and restoration.

Life is too short to carry hurts and frustrations very far. I have never known anyone who sought biblical reconciliation who wished they had waited a few more hours, or a few more days, or a few more months, or a few more years.

I know many who wish they hadn’t waited so long.

Don’t look back with regrets.

One day life will be over, perhaps sooner than you think.

By God’s grace, pursue reconciliation with the same love that God has pursued us.

It might not always work, but the attempt will always demonstrate the grace of God in the gospel.