Our intentions are important.
I had a check in my heart lately
when I was going to share something with someone.
This information was not important for the other person to know.
My intentions were exposed to me
and I knew that if I went ahead with the discussion
and shared what I wanted to share,
God would take His hands off the situation.
That was a difficult thing to hear
because I wanted the support from this other person,
for her to tell me, yes, this person has been unfair to you.
That can be like a poison, the reason to know would not have been good.
God was taking care of things
and it wasn’t going to help anything at all for her to know
and then for her to tell me how she saw it.
In fact, that would have put me under a different spiritual Law.
I would have been intentionally leaving
the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
and entering the Law of Sin and Death.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2
Not for everything in my life, but for that.
I want to always be under God’s favor.
I had a stern warning and I listened.
The reason to know would have been to spread harm.
When we are wronged, it is so hard to not want an audience,
even if it’s just an audience of one.
Telling this friend would have been wrong and caused division
because she also knows the person who did the offense.
It might have caused her to stumble, to harbor bad feelings,
but whatever the case, my intentions were wrong.
I was free to tell a friend who was helping me to bear the burden.
There was no ill intent on my part when I did that.
I did check my heart.
God does discern our thoughts and intentions:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful,
and sharper than any twoedged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Sometimes I feel like I’m so immature in this area.
Aren’t we just supposed to love our enemies and share Jesus’ love and mercy and give compassion and forgiveness like it has been given to us?
The short answer is Yes.
While our emotions are intertwined in situations, it may take some work.
Some work on God’s part and some work on ours.
Putting our flesh to death is always hard.
Jesus is there to give us the strength, that is, if we ask.
What can happen is we can keep going forward,
licking our wounds and concentrating on how we have been harmed.
That is not a good place to go.
Do we really want to get good at this?
Practice makes perfect.
I have a feeling, we will all be offended greatly as persecution is not too far off.
We will be despised and hated for doing nothing wrong at all.
For us to be the loving Christians God desires us to be,
we have to be able to walk through these difficult situations
with God’s strength and His love for our enemies.
They might be His enemies, too, if that helps any.