like a fire

So I spent last night with a lot of old friends. It was great to be able to see them again. I was struck by all the differences in them. Many had grown and become more mature and all had stories about their faith and what was going on with them and God. Some of these stories were told aplogetically and some with tears, but all reflected a change that happened at some point in their life where they either stopped trusting God or started.

Among those I saw were a couple of people who had done me great hurt while I was here. I couldn’t see any change in them. They seemed to be the same as when I left. I don’t know if they haven’t changed much, but I suspect that I just couldn’t see the change. Isn’t it funny how the people we are most drawn to and who we love we notice the little things, while the people that repel us we give very little attention. Someone once told me that you can’t hate someone without relating what you hate about them to yourself. The shorthand of that is, the reason we hate others is that we see things in them that we hate about ourselves. For whatever reason, I came back to looking at people that I have hated and thought about what it was that I hated about them and if I was like them in that way.

I’m great at denial. I don’t think that the afore mentioned thought is true though. I think it is possible to hate something without it relating to you. What I think, though, is that it is easy to hate and hard to love. How hard is it to love someone who has done something you hate. I wonder if that falls into the category of “with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible” because I saw someone who betrayed me and stabbed me in the heart and I could genuinely say that I felt love for them and wanted to ease their hurt.

So looking back, I think it is me that is different. Not in growing in maturity but in God’s grace.