GETTING READY/BEING READY

I have long believed that forgiveness is not something we can do...it is God's perfect work. However, God's perfect work is never going to get done without our imperfect cooperation. There is always our free will (God's paradoxical gift to us) to stand in our way or open the door of willingness depending on whether we are ready...ready to get over our own self.

I believe forgiveness is of God, but getting from his heart into mine is like unto the rough road to Calvary. It is "ready" that's the bramble bush. We've all heard the definition of the difference between willing and ready. We can be willing right this very red-hot minute to go to Paris, but there's a lot to do before we're ready...current passport, pack, notify work, friends and neighbors, etc.

Now we've gotten to the meat of the matter...getting ready to forgive. If we're even thinking that we want to forgive a personal wrong-doer, we're most likely in the wrong pew. Get out of there. Move on up to hopeless...up there where we are aware and fully aware that we are stabbing our own heart with hate. We see that we cannot help our self, and it is not even a major matter we're needing to forgive...but s/he did it to me with malice aforethought and it's not fair and if I give over s/he'll think I'm giving in and I'm not because I am right and it's not fair and it's not that s/he'll win but that I'll lose and everyone will know it and laugh at me and it's not fair.

This is known as getting ready. With an almost physical act of will we drag our thoughts back to God, to the things of God like roses and rainbows and puppies and peanuts. And we know we are helpless and hopeless to forgive that silly little act of no real account, but it was deliberately spiteful...and it's not fair and if I give over s/he'll think I'm giving in and I'm not because I am right and it's not fair and it's not that s/he'll win but that I'll lose and everyone will know it and laugh at me and it's not fair.

Still getting ready.

We never know the hour or day that the Bridegroom will come. That or something like it is somewhere in the Bible. It took me a long time arm-wrestling with my own ego before I got a glimmer of its meaning which I understand to mean when we've lost our battle with our ego (we sincerely want to get over our self but cannot), in that instant God (the Bridegroom) will come and set us free. That may or may not be the Bible's meaning, but it gives me peace so I go with it.

It is all that ego-wrestling that is our getting ready because the Bridegroom does not come to the unready. God alone knows when we are ready, and in that instant, we are loosed by love. We know it and we show it.

The underlying/overriding rule: Always be ready.

Thank you.