This week, I have had a misunderstanding happen that made someone I know get upset with me.  It was completely unintentional, but now this person feels a bit estranged, not included, distanced.  To be honest, I’ve been frustrated at this.  After something unintentional happens, it’s difficult to discern what could possibly help reverse the damage.

Since I feel innocent on a heart level, it’s also been hard for me to find a suitable solution to the conflict.  Every action toward repairing the relationship either puts me in an uncomfortable situation or appears like a confession that I was wrong.

God is pretty clever with how he deals with me.  This morning I woke up later than usual, got a little distracted, and didn’t have the laptop I wrote the Ruth series on.  So I opened up “My Utmost for His Highest” (the only devotional I highly recommend), and this is an excerpt of what I read:

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not – Do your duty, but – Do what is NOT your duty.  It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things.  There will be no spirit of – “Oh well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood.”  Every time I insist upon my rights, I hurt the Son of God; whereas I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I take the blow myself.  The disciple realizes that it is his Lord’s honour that is at stake in his life, not his own honour”

Sometimes, I hate it when Jesus is right.