This past weekend, The Navigators had our regional Northeast Conference. There were over 200 students and ECSU had a record 30 students come out, including alumni and students from other local universities who have visited the club there. Highlights included good speakers, powerful testimonies, wonderful conversations, and empowering workshops. I had the distinct privilege at the conference to lead a workshop called "Forgiveness: the Necessity and Power of Letting Go". In it, I shared about how just like Christ forgave us of an enormous debt, we should likewise forgive others of their much smaller, yet still pretty significant debts.
The workshop environment was somber, as students were a bit reluctant to speak, but still they were very receptive. At the end, I gave them opportunity to write down in detail the grudges that God had put on their heart to let go, pray over them, and then as a symbol of letting them go, they would tear up the piece of paper and dispose of it. Definitely the loudest and most satisfying noise at the end was the sound of the tearing up of paper!
I received much positive feedback from students, and even heard a testimony of a girl who let go of a grudge she was holding onto for 3 and 1/2 years!
However I too, also participated in the exercise and found out that I had been holding onto a grudge for a long time. As I was writing in detail about it, I also found myself describing someone else....ME!
A good friend said to me once, "If you're looking around trying to find the person who needs the most grace and can't find them, it's probably you." I found in this workshop that God put it on my heart not just to bless others, but so that I myself could also be blessed. I needed to let go of a grudge that I too was holding onto very tightly.
It is a process, but I have and will continue to forgive the offenders, and above all forgive myself. I've written about this before, but it's amazing how even though in Christ, God forgives us of all our sins, we can still at times not forgive ourselves. In doing that, we can also ricochet our guilt off of ourselves and start blaming other people. That's what I found myself doing.
We can in many ways blame others for our sin, but in reality, we are the worst. The one person who I know the most about is myself. I know in detail my past, my gifts, my talents, my weaknesses and many of the times which I have failed.
The beautiful thing is, though, is that God does not look at me and see my sin. God looks at me and sees His Son, Jesus. That's why in Him, I am called a saint.
God, help me in my life to be more of a saint, and less of a sinner. Continue to heal my heart and make it clean and open up my eyes to the sin in it so I can continually lay it down and be more like your Son. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Thanks for reading!
Steve
Image courtesy of necampusnavs.org, and was actually from the 2009 Winter Conference. The 2010 one looked very similar though!
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