Reconciled: Tall, Grande, or Venti?

Paul reminded the Corinthians that God is reconciling creation back to Himself. Reconciliation means to re-establish friendship, or to make whole what was broken. In this one idea Paul gives us a comprehensive view of life. The world is broken. Our sin broke it. It is like a beautiful crystal statue smashed into infinite fragments. You can look at the debris and see it was once remarkable. However, it is now impossible to mend, attempts at repair result in more fragments. Daily, the mess gets more complex, frustrating, heart-wrenching, overwhelming, depressing, fatiguing, and confusing.This disaster is most clear in our own hearts. Our words, actions, and thoughts reveal people who love themselves above all others. We continually attempt to build a life that advances our desires while keeping others at bay or moves them like chess pieces to our advantage. Consequently, discord and demandingness define our relationships. The darkness of the world flows out of our dark hearts.

Fortunately, we are not abandoned to our malice. In the midst of the darkness stands the man who made this place and its people in their original beauty, Jesus Christ. Nobody grieves more about what we've done to ourselves than Him. Instead of discarding His stained creation, He came into the wreckage. He modeled who we were meant to be. He lived perfectly compassionate and obedient knowing we were so vile we would execute Him for it.  Oddly, this was the remedy we needed. He used our hatred of Him to cure our hatred.Through Him, hatred cured hatred and death defeated death.

Now the world is being reconciled back to God through Him. Our friendship with God is re-made because of the cross. All the fragments, every little smashed shard of our hearts, and this world are being gathered back and made whole. We are reconciled to God through Jesus because of our faith. This is not the end of it. Reconciliation is not just something we do with God; it is something we extend to others. We are no longer a people of demand and discord. The community of Christ is a people of reconciliation. I must pursue reconciliation daily. Discord usually starts small. All it takes is a misunderstanding, a dropped ball, a mis-spoken word, a failure to communicate clearly, a missed thank-you, a forgotten appointment, a hurtful joke, an unpaid debt, a hurtful tone, being late....again, a broken promise, etc.....

Discord events in my life  are smalls, mediums, and larges. (For the coffee crowd think: talls, grandes, and ventis. As a counter-culture warrior, I intentionally never use this terminology at the coffee shop. We are not Europe. We defeated the metric system, and we will defeat soccer and coffee size nomenclature.) Left unattended they grow to the next size. I must move into them. They may be my fault or the others', but I can't let them sit. Here's how to move:

1. Pray to release your demand that the other be wrong.

2. Once demands are released look for what you must own as your part no matter how small.

3. Bring your part to the other for forgiveness and reconciliation.

4. When the other does not respond the way you want them too, which they won't, remember step 1.

5. When step 1 becomes too difficult, which it will, remember the cross and your own wretchedness.

There you go. Piece of cake, right? Not really, yet it is the essence of how we are to relate to each other. It pales in comparison to what Christ did for us. Where is there discord in your life that you need to mend? What are your smalls, mediums, and larges? Douse them in light today. Meet people today, or make appointments to meet asap. Why live in darkness when we can be light?