A Forgiving Forgiveness

Last weekend I attended the Grace Journey Men's Retreat.  I appreciate prayers and support that many of you gave me about this.  It was a great experience where I got to connect with God and with a great group of men.

There were about fifty first time attenders and fifty team members who made the retreat a wonderful time for us attenders.  Nine or ten attenders or "retreatants" came to a clear understanding of a relationship with Christ and accepted Him as their savior.  A lot of other spiritual and personal changes could be seen.

I got to see God do some really neat things between people.  I got to see a very diverse group of men - ethnically, generationally, religiously - find what we have in common in Christ.  One retreatant who had recently gotten out of prison recognized another retreatant had been one of his guards while on the inside.  The two connected as brothers now on the outside; there was no animosity, just a new sense of unity.

Two of the team members had made the realization that while one of them was a police officer years ago he arrested the other.  The man who had been arrested lost his job and a lot of other things after the arrested but that spiral down led him to turn to Christ.  Now they served side by side to share what Christ can do in forgiving us and enabling us to forgive.

God does give us a forgiving forgiveness.  My receiving it - if I really understand the magnitude of it - enables me to give it.  When I can't fully give it, it means there is something more of it that I need to ask for and receive.

How about you?  Is there someone in your life that if you both showed up at the same weekend retreat you would say to yourself, "Oh no, not him/her?"  God wants to fix that right now, not someday.  He wants to give you a forgiving forgiveness.  We will talk about receiving and giving that this Sunday.

for the journey...

Tim