Counting the Costs

It is seemingly a cruel stroke of fate and one of the incongruous realities of existence that it is those whom we most love that we are, in fact, most capable of hurting deeply.

I have thought on this long and regretfully during the past year…and again during the past week. Sometimes I marvel sadly over the fact that we can wound someone more profoundly than we know through something as simple as a careless word, a thoughtless action, or a disrespectful attitude. How is it that, knowing all that I know, I still haven’t learned not to damage those around me? How is it that I still inflict wounds on my fellow man? Still mar those who have been—like me—made in the Divine image?

How we view others is perhaps largely a function of how we view God…and how we view ourselves.

Today I hurt someone that I love…because I lost sight of who God is, and I allowed my focus to shift to myself, my needs, my feelings, my insecurities…my rights. And according to the rules of my myopic, self-focused little world, I was justified in my impatience, in my lack of compassion, in my judgmental attitudes…in my lack of love.

What I so often fail to realize is that in my myopic, self-focused world, there is no room for others…and there is no room for a loving, compassionate, forgiving, and gracious God. There is room only for one flawed, sinful, broken individual…and there is no healing and no hope.

I wish sometimes that I could turn back the clock…that I could undo the thoughtless deed, the hasty word, or the judgmental glance, and replace it with something Christ-like. But the reality of it is that we can’t…that what is once done can never be completely undone, and what is once uttered can never be unspoken.

And so it is with humility and a keen sense of my own inadequacy that I echo the words of David tonight when he says in Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”

After all, it is our words which expose us for who we truly are…as Christ says Himself, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

May our words and our actions consistently bear testimony to the treasure which is within our hearts…and may we have the humility to admit when we are wrong, the grace to ask for forgiveness, and the persistence to seek reconciliation of damaged relationships...