How’s your relationship with God? Do you ever go through periods of your life where you feel disconnected from Him? I can’t count the times in my life where I’ve sat down to pray and feel as though I am going through an empty ritual. Sometimes, if I am honest with you, the fallen part of me even wonders if anyone’s on the other end of the line. Talking with God’s not like talking with your best friend or your spouse, is it? Furthermore, the Bible shows us in painstaking detail how easy it is for us to separate ourselves from Him. We tell lies, we let our temper get away from us, we ignore people we don’t like. We commit so much of our time during the week to the things that interest us and please us and give so little time to the one we’ve said we’ve given our lives to.
Changing subjects (but not really), have you ever been less than honest with someone? Maybe you told your boss a lie about being sick when really you just wanted the day off. Maybe you cheated on a test in school. How many of us have ever lied to our spouses? Our parents? And then, the Day of Reckoning arrives. We feel guilty for what we did, the lies we told, and we confess. Or worse, we get caught in our lie and have to come clean. And the truth is, not only have we told those lies before, but we have had those lies told to us by other people, haven’t we? And it’s not just lying that we’re guilty of. Ever stolen ten dollars from your mama’s purse? How about bad-mouthing someone behind their back? In short, every one of us know what it is to do wrong to someone and to be wronged by someone.
Okay, enough making you feel bad. Let me rather encourage you to take inventory of your relationships and ask yourself, “Do I need to make things right with someone?” That somebody might be God. Or it might be the one you love the most. Often, it’s somebody you don’t even like. Regardless, consider the stakes; unrestored relationship could leave you running around for years wondering what’s wrong with your Christian walk. God wants us to live in right relationship with Him and with others. Whether or not you are the one who needs to ask for forgiveness, or the one who needs to offer forgiveness, consider the sweet reward that comes from tearing down the walls of resentment and bitterness between you and someone else. I’ll leave you with words from Matthew 5:23-24:
“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”