dealbreakers & grace
September 15, 2014
One of my favorite topics of discussion is the topic of dealbreakers in relationships, particularly those that have to do with someone's past actions. What situations/scenarios may arise that would make you uncomfortable to the point that you'd say 'no I cannot deal with such a thing in you'. For instance, if someone had cheated before or elements of someone's sexual history.
In thinking about this idea of something in someone's past becoming a dealbreaker or not, I realized how my line of thinking is very much related to the Christian ideas of grace, mercy, and forgiveness. In many of my answers to whether or not something would be a dealbreaker to me, my line of thinking is ... if God can forgive them for those actions and overlook that and fully accept them into a relationship with Him, then who am I to not? Or do I think that their actions have hurt me more gravely than they have hurt God? Of course forgiving doesn't necessarily mean placing yourself in a foolish situation continuously, such as if someone has repeatedly cheated on you or is abusing you.
But I've been realizing how radical of an idea it is that God sees all our past, present, and future sins & doesn't consider any of it a dealbreaker in a relationship with us. As long as we come before him, confess, ask for forgiveness, and believe, He takes us as is and is willing to give us a clean slate in a relationship with Him; He's willing to work with us as we are. That's a pretty phenomenal concept if we were to think of the equivalent in a dating/marriage relationship. If we knew someone would cheat on us in the future, would we still date/marry them? Probably not. But God knows our rebellious and sinful nature and knows how many times we will turn away from Him (take the Israelites for example), and yet He never gives up on us or refuses to take us into His love and grace.
Consider already how difficult it is for humans to accept each other & their pasts, how naturally not trustful we are of each other -- of cheaters, of murderers. How hard it is for us to give other people 2nd chances because we feel wronged or are scared of being hurt again. And yet God in infinite wisdom & perfect knowledge, gives us 2nd chances freely. We are like children fighting over toys and having a hard time letting go of what is seemingly a petty incident when compared to the magnitude of our sins & rebellion before God. It reminds me of the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18: 21-35) God forgives our tremendous debt against him and asks for no payment back & yet we have a hard time letting go of the little that people have done to us (little in comparison to what we've done to God).
It's quite freeing to know that despite the fact that God knows me through and through, of all I've done and will do and have thought about, He never says 'that is too much for me; I cannot accept you.' It's freeing but also quite a hard concept for me to grasp at times, as there is often a fear within me of whether or not the people around me, my friends, and my family would accept me or not if they knew all I had done. But thank goodness God already knows me to my inmost being and He is still willing to love me and call me His child.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus' Rom 3:23-24
amazing grace indeed
One of my favorite topics of discussion is the topic of dealbreakers in relationships, particularly those that have to do with someone's past actions. What situations/scenarios may arise that would make you uncomfortable to the point that you'd say 'no I cannot deal with such a thing in you'. For instance, if someone had cheated before or elements of someone's sexual history.
In thinking about this idea of something in someone's past becoming a dealbreaker or not, I realized how my line of thinking is very much related to the Christian ideas of grace, mercy, and forgiveness. In many of my answers to whether or not something would be a dealbreaker to me, my line of thinking is ... if God can forgive them for those actions and overlook that and fully accept them into a relationship with Him, then who am I to not? Or do I think that their actions have hurt me more gravely than they have hurt God? Of course forgiving doesn't necessarily mean placing yourself in a foolish situation continuously, such as if someone has repeatedly cheated on you or is abusing you.
But I've been realizing how radical of an idea it is that God sees all our past, present, and future sins & doesn't consider any of it a dealbreaker in a relationship with us. As long as we come before him, confess, ask for forgiveness, and believe, He takes us as is and is willing to give us a clean slate in a relationship with Him; He's willing to work with us as we are. That's a pretty phenomenal concept if we were to think of the equivalent in a dating/marriage relationship. If we knew someone would cheat on us in the future, would we still date/marry them? Probably not. But God knows our rebellious and sinful nature and knows how many times we will turn away from Him (take the Israelites for example), and yet He never gives up on us or refuses to take us into His love and grace.
Consider already how difficult it is for humans to accept each other & their pasts, how naturally not trustful we are of each other -- of cheaters, of murderers. How hard it is for us to give other people 2nd chances because we feel wronged or are scared of being hurt again. And yet God in infinite wisdom & perfect knowledge, gives us 2nd chances freely. We are like children fighting over toys and having a hard time letting go of what is seemingly a petty incident when compared to the magnitude of our sins & rebellion before God. It reminds me of the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18: 21-35) God forgives our tremendous debt against him and asks for no payment back & yet we have a hard time letting go of the little that people have done to us (little in comparison to what we've done to God).
It's quite freeing to know that despite the fact that God knows me through and through, of all I've done and will do and have thought about, He never says 'that is too much for me; I cannot accept you.' It's freeing but also quite a hard concept for me to grasp at times, as there is often a fear within me of whether or not the people around me, my friends, and my family would accept me or not if they knew all I had done. But thank goodness God already knows me to my inmost being and He is still willing to love me and call me His child.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus' Rom 3:23-24
amazing grace indeed
Comments
Post a Comment