Thoughts & opinion from the southampton vineyard team
clearing the decks
by Matt Hyam on 6th February, 2009
Its been a long time since I last wrote anything.
Sorry about that. You know. Christmas, small children, trips to Zimbabwe and Pastor’s conferences and all that jazz.
Anyway, I am here now so I need to think of something significant to say.
Hmmm.
Well, I feel like God’s been on my case this last week or so. Something happened to me at the Vineyard Leaders’ conference and it has scarred me.
In a good way.
God just convicted me. I have spent some time saying sorry to people and dealing with issues of unforgiveness. I gotta tell you. I feel a WHOLE lot better for it.
I got fed up with being angry with people. I got fed up with decisions that I was making being guided by issues that I had or “stuff”.
I don’t feel angry anymore.
Actually, let me rephrase that. I feel really angry that we live in a world where children starve to death and where people’s love of money and oil and gold leads then to kill and torture and destroy and consume. I feel livid that people go to bed hungry while we throw away food. I feel enraged that the church in the west is still focussed on getting meetings right whilst the one’s who Jesus came for are still hungry and lonely and marginalised and broken.
So, yes, I do feel angry.
But I think that I am supposed to feel angry about those things. Assuming that this anger leads to the kind of revolution that Jesus wants.
I just don’t feel angry with people who have hurt me anymore. I am not clinging on to some twisted sense of justice whereby I want them to fail so I can be proved right.
I feel like a weight has gone off my shoulders.
Its much nicer being friends with people.
I like that feeling. I think I might stick with it.
So. Now I want to keep short accounts, which is Christian for, I want to deal with things straight away now – forgive, ask forgiveness. Let go.
You know, like Jesus said.