Forgive WHO?

I have a funny belief.  I believe that when I hear something several times from different sources in a one or two day span as it relates to the Bible and/or my relationship with God, that it probably means God is trying to get my attention. If I only hear it once, it is still good information, but maybe not what God is purposing to do with me at the moment.

 

Well, He has my attention now.  And the topic I have been hearing over and over for almost a week now from so many sources that I cannot ignore it? Forgiveness.

 

Let me set the stage.  I went to my son’s graduation last week. He graduated from Chaffey College, and as always, it is a mixed blessing.  I love my son very much, and the opportunity to see him and to witness his graduation is great.  However, his mother, my ex-wife, was there.  Her, I would just as soon not see.

 

Anyway, leaving the ceremony, I was listening to Christian radio, and Focus on the Family was on.  Dr. Dobson had a guest who had written a book on forgiveness, and he was using Joseph as his example. It was compelling listening.  The author was R.T. Kendall and the book was Total Forgiveness. I was thinking about my ex-wife anyway, and it occurred to me that I had forgiven her.  I felt that I had learned that lesson, so this one was not for me, even as interesting as it was.  Later I heard at least 3 other sermons whose fundamental message was forgiveness. Today, on Focus on the Family, Dr. Dobson had Mr. Kendall back to discuss his follow on book, “How to Forgive Ourselves Totally”.  This time he used himself as an example.  He said there are fundamentally two kinds of guilt. One type is corrective guilt, and God uses this to get us back in line.  The other is false guilt, and this type of guilt is the handiwork of Satan. 

 

Without re-broadcasting the entire discussion, I realized that my loathing to see my ex wife had nothing to do with her.  To me, she was a reflection of my own failure.  She represented all the mistakes I had made from the moment I met her up through the divorce and continuing on until about 4 years ago when my son reached adulthood and I did not have to deal with her anymore. What I have here to deal with is both types of guilt – the correcting of God that I chose to ignore for so ever long, coupled with Satan’s twisting of the knife.

 

So, what does this mean?  The author stated that not forgiving ourselves is subtle arrogance – that Christ’s atoning blood was not sufficient to cover our particular sin. But it is.  My sins, all of them, are simply indicators of my sin, that is my sin nature.  Christ can take this all away. I simply have to let him.

 

- Cliff

Building a Tiny Travel Trailer

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been engrossed in a fun project. I am building a Tiny Travel Trailer. The idea was popularized in the 30’s and 40’s when cars were underpowered and gas was expensive.  Kind of like today.

The popular model of Tiny Travel Trailer is known as a “Teardrop”, due to its curved shape. 

I am building a squarish design called a “Weekender”.  It looks a bit like a wooden casket on its side.  This one is called the Desert Dawg, and is my inspiration.

So far, this is as far as I have gotten

Building this trailer has a spiritual side.  I have been trying to pray every time I work on it.  I pray for protection from accidents with the power tools I am using. I pray for clear vision, and for wisdom to see things before I commit to them, so as to do the best job I can. Another spiritual part of the project is the very act of physical labor.  For some reason, sitting at a desk trying to convince folks that my company’s products are better than anybody elses for their unique application, lacks a purity that exists in craftsmanship.  I find when I build with my hands, I can feel the satisfaction of honest effort.  I’ll bet God felt that way when he built the universe.

Cliff