“How many times do I have to say I'm sorry” ?

 Thats what Phil Collins asks in his song “On the way to Heaven”.

We may ask the same question when we have wronged someone.  Jesus said  we should forgive someone who has wronged us between 77 and 490 times (depending on your translation), but how many times should I apologise to someone I have wronged? 

Many years ago Faith & I were debriefing with the head of the organisation we were with at the time. We had just experienced a traumatic episode which could have been better handled by the leadership.  As I shared my pain, the leader, a good and godly man who I respect, apologised for the pain we were suffering.

As I kept expressing my pain he uttered the unfortunate words “I have already apologised”. 

They were not well received.  I felt like screaming ‘your apology doesn't change what I'm going through!! 

It’s easy for you to say, but it doesn't change my pain which your action has caused.” Yet even in my frustration I was asking myself “what else can he say or do that would undo, or even relive, the pain I'm feeling?”

In the intervening years I have revisited that question, especially when I've found myself apologising to someone who has kept on expressing their hurt even after I have apologised.

One thing I’ve learnt: just because I apologise and am ready to "move on" doesn't mean the other person is. Inevitably when I've hurt someone I'm more ready (keen even) to "move on" than the person I have hurt. Pain and pride in both parties can be a mine field. (that's worthy of a discussion in itself)

This is where a written apology has some advantages. It’s the apology that ‘keeps on apologising’.  
A person can go back to it again and again, re-read it, and as they work through their pain it’s there to re-affirm and remind that the one apologising meant it.

Can that be achieved with a spoken apology or is it somehow different?   A lot may depend  on our attitude.  If I am truly sorry then I shouldn’t mind repeating my apology for however long it takes to ‘sink in’. After all, in a very real way, if I am sorry for something at one point, do I somehow stop being sorry for it at some time down the road?

But rather than repeating “I apologise” ad nauseum, it may be more helpful (and accurate) to say “my apology still stands and I am happy to repeat it for as long as it takes for you to really hear it.”

If what Jesus said is any indication, this could take anywhere between 77 – 490 times.
But if we really are sorry, it’s worth it to restore peace with someone we have wronged.
What do you think?

Angelo

"the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore."

 "Christianity is recognisable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore."(1)

"the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore." That phrase so well addresses a large part of the disconect between what seems to be continually broadcast over us, and the reality of our relationship, or potential relationship, with God.

My 'world' seems to be continually messaging me that my relationship to God through Jesus is irrelevant, not needed, archaic, irrational.

And yet in my world, 'on the ground' the oppsite proves true. In so many people's lives, where there is hardship, poverty, injustice, unemployment, struggle - in many of those contexts, it seems faith flourishes and God is present in a way that seems alien to my world as it is portrayed to me by 'the advertising agencies'.

Could it be the part the advertising agencies choose to ignore is more the real world?

It is fashionable to say that faith cannot hold up in the face of reality and yet, at least as often, when I look at 'reality' on the ground, in the real world, I find the opposite is true. Real faith navigates the struggles and challenges of life rather well.

Recently I read of a man who 'lost his faith' in the course of theological academic studies - a not unheard of  experience. He 're-found' his faith in the middle of a battle field when a bullet killed his friend as they were speaking together. His 'academics' had no answer, or efficacy, in the face of such 'reality'.

Jesus said that when all has been said and done that many who actively trust in Him and are now 'last' will be 'first' (and vicki-verka). I increasingly suspect that we will find the 'first' will contain a large number of those who have met God and followed God in 'the bits of our lives the advertising agencies prefer to ignore'.

(1) This is part of a description of Francis Spufford's book  "Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense"  http://amzn.com/B008CB9J4C

Love that will not let me go.

This week I had the joy of catching up with a friend of past days. His brother, who was well known and been in pastoral ministry for many decades, having suffered through a somewhat prolonged period of depression, which included a loss of clarity about his salvation and God's acceptance of him, had died recently.My friend related how his brother's last days, were a long oppressive darkness.

Yet one day on visiting, only to find his brother 'in his right mind', at peace and 'back to his old self'. Upon inquiring what had happened, his brother told him he had a visitation from some angels, two of which had assured him of God's continued love for Him, and interestingly another one who tried to convince him that the other two were lying! "What do you make of it?" his brother asked, to which my friend replied along the lines of  'you wouldn't be the first to have such a visitation.'

A few days later my friend visited again only to find his brother again engulfed in darkness.
"What happened?"
"Oh the doctor told me I was hallucinating - it was the drugs."
I'd like to talk to that doctor one day.

That aside however, this is a common scenario that many families go through, though thankfully not too many doctors are as foolish as that one.  As well as the situation itself, families, and maybe more so Christian families, struggle themselves with the question of how does God see my loved one who now seems to have lost, or even given up, their faith?

As I reflected on my friends situation I remembered a familiar story (apocryphal or otherwise I don't know)  which tells of a husband tending his wife who has lost her memory. She recognises no-one, including him. Friends ask him "why do you bother?- she doesn't even know who you are." to which he replies "But I know who she is."

If a husband is capable of that towards his wife, I am confident God must have that same attitude towards his people who have through illness or misfortune 'forgotten' who He is.

He never forgets who we are. Numerous verses from the Bible come to mind.

".....whoever comes to me I will never drive away." John 6:37

God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

"Love that will not let me go" indeed!   The promise is not vain. (1)

Our God knows who we are.


(1) http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/hymns/o08.html