Nobody really likes the color Grey. Religious people especially despise it.
My wife and I spent last night with a beautiful friend going through an ugly divorce. We poured some tea, ate some brownies and sifted through the rubble of life as pain drizzled down on us all. And as she sat on our couch one legal decree and a gavel bang away from the end, some pretty powerful wisdom was spoken.
I'm always amazed at how much profound truth and spot-on perspective come from those wearily bearing the fresh scars of war.
So we're talking about relationships and restoration and forgiveness - and she's sharing how difficult it is to negotiate the conflict of divorce and destroyed relationships as they crash into the teachings of Jesus - when she says something to the effect of reconciliation not being primarily intended for people to people, but rather for people to God.
Record scratch.
Lightening flash.
Wait, say that again...
Yeah, God wants us above all to have restored relationship with Him. His primary goal is to reconcile us to himself. Not each other. Oh yes, I think I read that somewhere once (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
This truth hung on me - it haunted me, and stole my sleep. I wondered then, if reconciliation among God's children - person to person - isn't a promise like we are sometimes overly quick to proclaim. I thought that maybe reconciliation isn't always going to happen between us in our relationships with one another. I started to see how sin can take hold and get in the way, preventing reconciliation between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and brother, husband and wife.
But inside of that frustrating thought came the truth that Jesus stands firm and always desires to reconcile us to himself. He stands as the one eternally ready to forgive. Always ready to wash us clean. Always ready to redeem. Always ready to pour out grace and mercy on the ones who truly seek it.
I wonder is we're sometimes deceived into thinking that as Christ-followers, we must continue to strive for reconciliation with each other at all costs. Chasing it down so hard that it begins to destroy us, and pursuing it to the point of experiencing repeated emotional, spiritual and maybe even physical abuse, compromising the safety of ourselves and the people we love.
And I honestly wonder (cue the silly little bracelets), what would Jesus do?
I don't think he'd be a doormat. And I don't believe we're called to absorb the powerful and dangerous body blows of relational discord in the name of reconciliation.
But I also believe that we're not called to completely walk away in bitterness and hatred.
I mean, Jesus calls us to be active in pursuing reconciliation against those to whom we've done wrong (Matt. 5:23-24), and he also calls us to forgive 490 times if we need to (Matt. 18:21-22). But there's not a ton of discussion as to what he wants us to do when one person in a relationship wants reconciliation and the other one doesn't. Yes, you forgive and release the anger, bitterness, frustration against that person to God, but how do you actively attempt to restore relationship with someone who doesn't want it?
You can't force reconciliation just like you can't force love.
You want my two cents?
I think you can imitate Jesus by actively standing ready to accept the repentant heart when it approaches. All the while allowing God to plumb the depths of yours to continually root out the issues that get in the way of your relationship with Him.
I guess the fact is that in this broken world, some people will eventually end up truly asking for forgiveness and some won't. But just as God waits and hopes and dreams of the day that the wayward child comes home a changed person, so we must do the same. We must stand ready and willing to fling open the doors of our hearts at the exact same moment the other person flings them open to us.
I wish there was an easier blueprint for how to deal with this. A cleaner solution. If there's something on WikiAnswers, please let me know.
But if not, we're rushed back into the hues of our least favorite color...and the problem with being a black and white person floating along in a sea of grey. We want to tell the divorcee that God desires - no, demands - reconciliation of the marriage at all costs. We reduce the complexity of the situation to a bumper sticker for our own convenience. We quote a verse or two without having the guts to listen to the whole story.
We offer the black and white response because we're uncomfortable staring too long into the piercing Grey eyes that have cried out all their tears.
But we need to see the bigger picture here.
The canvas covered in the broad strokes of sin and redemption and depravity. The love story where God is the main character - not us. The blurry photograph with a million shades of Grey crashing into one another with nothing making sense.
We cannot be afraid to sit in a room with all the Greys of life. We cannot be afraid to engage this color, lock eyes with it no matter how hard it is - and allow it to ultimately lead us to the cross.
