Digging Up Roots

My name is Jess. I have a story. 

My story is far from perfect but God uses some of the most imperfect people to bring about His glory.

My story involves many facets of darkness that entered my life both welcomed and Unwelcomed by me. These situations and decisions I made affected the path I chose to go down.

I, like many,  suffered a very bad situation with a particular individual with many different grievances committed against me. For a very long time, I had convinced myself that I had forgiven this person, but that justice still needed to be served, so an element of me held on to this unserved justice in the form of bitterness unchecked. 

Now here is where I feel my story becomes so relevant to so many. Because I was in church and had read so many books on forgiveness and spoke in counseling and frequently with others about forgiveness and not holding onto bitterness, I had convinced myself that I had no bitterness. I was under the impression that justice unserved alotted me a certain amount of “righteous indignation”. And I was aware of the verse in Hebrew 12:15 “see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”! 

God revealed to me my unforgiveness and I finally did release this person to God, and I let go of any form of deserved payment or justice. I literally just let it all go. Was this person wrong for doing these things? Yes. But I didn’t need to keep saying it to myself. I literally needed to allow God to take control of the wrong in the situation and just accept that I was owed nothing. 
I experienced SO much relief and freedom that I literally felt the years of heaviness immediately lift. I was able to communicate with others and love others more freely because unbeknownst to me I did in fact have a bitter root. 

That’s the thing about roots though. Often times we don’t know they are there because they are buried so deep. They are hidden from our quick oversight of ourselves. 

That’s why we need not only our savior’s redemption and protection, but we also need His viewpoint. 

1 Samuel 16:7 says “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” He doesn’t just mean His viewpoint of others versus our viewpoint of them. He means His viewpoint of US. 

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:14-15,

” For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
I mean think about that. Let that soak in. I have been forgiven of SO SO much. God’s grace has been more that sufficient for me in so many unbelievable ways! Why on earth would I want to let someone ELSE’s sin keep that grace- that beautiful, freeing, yet securing, grace- from me? 

I don’t! I absolutely need God’s grace. I crave it. It has saved me from the pits of HELL, from the torments of this world, and most of all from my own self destruction. His grace is sufficient for me and the sins I commit against others, it is sufficient for the sins others commit against me. I am not the judge, I am a free child of the righteous ruler. He gets love far more than my mind can encompass and His love is right and fair. 

I don’t need to be the ruler, I only need to serve Him and trust His reign to be sovereign and righteous enough to surpass my knowledge of how my world should run. The more I think about this the more I am grateful- because I don’t want to be responsible for the way things work out over all the eternity of time. I mean, how many times have I tried to control my own life and make it happen the way I want it to and really, REALLY messed it up?! How many times have you? 

Let go of the “right” to control, the “right” to justice. His grace is sufficient. For me, for you.  For our accusers and our transgressors. 

We are a lost and humble people. We need our great ruler and our great king to be the ultimate and sovereign judge. He knows better than us. We will not be wiser than Him in our thought process. We will never get the perfect ratio between justice and mercy like He does. The difference between deserved wrath and understanding love. We need our great King. Let go so He can reign in your heart and over our land.

Much Love in Christ,

Jess