Foregiveness

Ephesians 4:32 (NLT)  Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
  I spent quite a bit amount of time praying and thinking about this assignment about forgiveness. I have to say this though; I have been working the 12 steps of recovery for 19 years now and part of the program has a step built in that is to make amends whenever I was wrong. Step 8 is Made a list of all people we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Step 9 is Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. So as much as possible, if I am working " my program" a term used in recovery. I should be continually addressing issues that I am aware of. Of course sometimes things get pointed out that I am unaware of, but hopefully not very often. This has been an ongoing process in my life and have really noticed when I am working my program and when I am not. I draw close to Jesus when I am working on me. The one thing that I can say is that the forgiving myself has been the most challenging part of my faith and of my program. The enemy stirs up things that I did in my youth, choices that I made that I still come up. For example, a few weeks back I was hired to work at the church. When I filled out my application I needed to also fill out a criminal background check. Well the list of criminal activity and bad choices are still there. They don't ever completely go away. No matter how long it has been, I still am dealing with those choices. That makes it hard to forgive myself.

Kenosis

Kenosis- Empty oneself, made himself nothing

 I was given an assignment to find something or someway to empty myself or Kenosis. As I though of what I could do to empty myself, the one thing I hold near and dear lately is time. I don't have much of it and every minute of my waking existence is precious to me. So I set out to find somewhere that I could serve and give of my time. I asked God to direct me and I quickly thought of the Steckly construction crew that is working on our soon to be completed classrooms. I finished my workday at 12 noon today and had originally planned on going home to get some chores done before returning to class at 4 this afternoon. Rather than going home though I went up to the 4th floor of the Broadway building and asked plainly, " what can I do to help?" Lowell thought about it for a minute and soon I was putting shelves together, drilling holes and whatever else needed to be done. I was only there for 2 hours, but those hours are precious when you have a full plate. I prayerfully considered what I could do to serve others and God literally directed me to  help out in any way needed. Vacuuming, dusting, whatever needed to be done.  Small tasks are great tasks when done for The Lord. Thank you for allowing me to serve in such a small way.

Robert Garcia