Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. (I Corinthians 13:4-5 NLT) Lewis B. Smedes reminds us, "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you." We may not realize just how 'bound' we have become by holding onto those things we find 'hard to forgive' in others. It isn't that we don't want to forgive - it is that our memory keeps it front and center in our lives, making it hard to really let go. Forgiveness doesn't mean we won't remember a slight against us. Some might think it means the pain we associate with the slight will begin to be less and less until one day it is there no longer. We won't really let go of the unforgiveness - it just doesn't bring us that same level of pain when we remember it. This isn't what God had in mind for us, though. He wants us to be both free of th...
May the Lord richly bless both you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all humanity. The dead cannot sing praises to the Lord, for they have gone into the silence of the grave. But we can praise the Lord both now and forever! (Psalm 115:14-18 NLT) The heavens belong to the Lord. We cannot fathom the true majesty of his heavenly realm, even though we have powerful telescopes that help us to explore the skies. The 'human eye' cannot see the divine in all his glory, but the human heart can come to know and appreciate the mystery of his intense love for his creation. We may think of praise and worship as engaging in behavior that 'glorifies God' through song, raised hands, dance, and even silence at times. Yet it is so much more. There is a transformative power within praise and worship. It regenerates our hearts and focuses our minds. We might just find that praise and ...