Recently, I had one of those days. Projects not going well. Pressure from too many directions. And then, a coworker made a disparaging comment about a process I had been working on. One that required collaboration from more than one department. One that I had put a lot of energy into for months. I responded sharply. Later on that day, I did it again with another coworker! I felt justified in my actions because they had commented without taking the time to understand.
Later that night, I realized that one reason I had gotten upset at the moment was that I agreed with them! The process in question wasn’t working ideally, despite my efforts. I became defensive. The troubling thing was this: I realized that whether I felt justified in feeling the way I did, I had no justification for responding the way I did! They deserved a calm and reasoned response from me.
With a little [or maybe a lot] of heavenly grace and pressure, I gathered staff around me, the two I had spoken to and others who had overheard, and confessed to them. What a relief! How many times have I missed the chance to reach out in confession and healing? Because of my pride, my rightness, unwillingness to take the first step.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24
Our heavenly Father is all about relationships. My relationship with Him. My relationships with others.
He is not about fault. He is all about reconciliation, patching, healing, renewing. Do you have a broken relationship? Maybe it’s just a small chip, maybe it is a gaping hole. With a brother, a parent, a child, a friend, a coworker, a wife? Fix it and fix it now! It is NOT about fault, about who said what to whom first, about who rightly holds 51% or more of the blame. It is about healing and mending and bringing back together. It is going about our Father’s business.
shared 10/5/09 work devotional