Luke Parrott

How To Put Yourself in Prison

What happens when anger gets the best of us?  When pain nestles itself deep into our heart?  When its staying power starts to wear us down?  When bitterness begins to settle in?  When it finds great company in feelings of resentment?  When the heart becomes hard?  When we become unaware of our own grief?

Is this how you respond when you encounter tragedy?  When your heart is broken does it harden?

The sad reality is that some people allow tragedy to lead them to prison.  When the hurt never finds a place to heal, it leads us straight to the prison cell.  We become chained to our own pain.  We become enslaved by our own bitterness.  We become deceived by our own resentment.  We become isolated in our own holding cell of emotions. 

We are in prison and we don’t even know it. 

But it is forgiveness that frees us from the chains of bondage.  As Desmond Tutu writes, "There is no future without forgiveness."  Jesus calls us to offer the same portion of forgiveness to others that he has allotted to each of us. 

It was the unforgiving man in Matthew 18 that saw forgiveness as one sided.  He warmly welcomed it and begged for it from his master, but from his own friend he demanded payment. 

Where are you withholding forgiveness today?  Is it in a small squabble with a friend?  Is it in a long drawn out resentment that has been brewing in your heart for years? 

Why not release yourself from prison today by going to them and seeking forgiveness?  If God were as stingy as humankind in the way that we offer forgiveness, where would we be today?

Thanks be to God for his loving mercy!  It is new each and every morning!  May it be the same for us as we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Wrestling with Forgiveness

In this tragedy, I'm finding that it matters where you sit on the spectrum of forgiveness as to how you respond.  Those who are not ready to forgive are wrestling hard with issues of betrayal and deception.  Their heart longs for justice.  And rightfully so!  Their mind moves more quickly towards scripture about justice and punishment for sin.  Some are so far from forgiveness that it feels right to say things like "burn in hell". 

Those who are open to forgiveness or have already done so are longing for reconciliation.  They want healing to happen.  They want repentance to occur.  They say things like, "we are all sinners."  They call to mind examples of Jesus forgiving all of our ugliest sins at the cross.  Some are so strong on this that they rebuke others who have refused to forgive.

You see, it matters where you are on the forgiveness spectrum as to where you are in the grieving process.  And to both sides of the issue, I say, we must allow each other the freedom to be exactly where we are.  No one is acting unbiblically if they haven't come to terms with forgiveness yet.  They are on the road that leads to that hopefully.  But just because they aren't there yet does not mean they are in the wrong.  Grieving takes time.

My prayer is that we are all on the road to forgiveness.  But that is a much longer stretch of road for some than others!  And for some people, forgiveness simply is NOT the appropriate thing to talk about right now.  And that is okay. 

May all of us be discerning with each other.  That we might all be led to carry one another's grief.  To listen to each other.  To allow the anger to flare up.  To allow the depression/despair/sadness to settle in.  To allow the feelings to come as they will. 

To lead each other in love as we all travel the road toward forgiveness.

Is Anger the Answer?

When is it appropriate to be angry? 

When the shock wears off and the truth settles in, the anger begins to flare up.  For others even the initial shock throws us right into a fit of rage.

About 4 years ago, I was deeply betrayed by a fairly new friend.  He had won my trust and then did something behind my back that shocked me.  When I became aware of the news, I immediately marched over to his residence and demanded to know the whole truth.  I was angry.  I was hurt.  I was out to get him.  And I thought myself completely justified. 

That night I said some things to him that I wish I could have taken back.  But it wasn't until two years down the road that I came to this realization.  I wrestled back and forth with whether my anger was justified or not.  Was the incident horrific in nature?  Yes.  Was it hurtful?  Yes.  Was there a need for justice?  Absolutely!  That was exactly where I had found my reasoning to hurl insults at him.

But somewhere in our righteous anger, we can allow it to take us over.  We can harness the strength of this emotion to great lengths.  And we can invoke just as much harm as was first induced.  Tit for tat.  Eye for an eye.  Tooth for a tooth. 

There is nothing morally wrong about feeling angry.  But if anger gets the best of us, it brings out the worst in us.  Our tongue becomes a fire that sets the whole forest ablaze!  (James 3:5) 

As I walk through this tragedy with my friends, I see the whole gambit of feelings coming forward.  And all of us are trying to justify our emotional state.  We want to know that what we are feeling is the right way to respond.  Whether we use scripture or memories or our own value system, we are all trying to support where we stand. 

Understanding the natural way humans respond to tragedy helps us see what this emotional process looks like for my friends and I.

Any professional counselor will tell you that when a tragedy strikes people respond in the following phases:  Denial which leads to Anger which leads to Depression and ultimately Acceptance or Resolution.  Somewhere in the middle of all these emotions, forgiveness needs to be extended to the perpetrator.  If we hold on to our anger, then we imprison ourselves. 

The people of Rwanda would be the first to tell you that.  They are still to this day trying to release their hearts from the pain of the genocide in 1994.  Perpetrators are asking for forgiveness.  And families of victims are trying to let the pain go and free themselves by saying, "I forgive you."  But all of this is happening as the Rwandan people face the reality of the crimes committed.  The murderers must own up to the horror of their actions.  The families of the victims must stare that murderer in the face.

And in that moment of tension, reconciliation must happen. 

The problem is that these things take time for the human heart.  It's been 15 years since the genocide took place.  And people are still not ready to forgive.  And so it will be the same for many of my friends affected by this tragedy. 

My prayer is simply that we would allow each other to fully walk (even crawl) through the grieving process.  That we would allow these emotions to come.  Ultimately, that we would not enslave ourselves to our own anger, but that somewhere in this tragedy we would find God and find each other.

If we can somehow find our way to this end (that of loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves) then God has been gracious to us all.

Is anger the answer? Well, its not the final answer.  But it is certainly a part of the natural human process.  But we must not allow it to bring about further damage than what has already been done.  And we must realize that when the anger subsides, the depression will set in.  And that is where we will have to wrestle with the real pain and real questions that surface when tragedy has come.

All the more reason why we need each other now more than ever...when trust has been broken.

When Trust is Broken

What do you do when trust has been broken?  When you feel betrayed?  When you thought you knew someone?  When you feel so hurt?  When you feel so alone?  When you don't know who to turn to?

Jesus was no stranger to that feeling!  He turned to his disciples and said, "Do you want to go away as well?" after the crowds abandoned him in John 6.  He felt the stab in the back from one of his closest 12 friends, Judas Iscariot.  The kiss of the cheek was the deepest of betrayal.  It led to his own death!

What do you do when trust has been broken?  That's what many of my friends are dealing with right now.  I just want to encourage you not to close off.  Not to run away.  Not to hide from the hurt.  Even in the brokenness you need to move towards others. 

Start with someone you still trust.  Maybe it's your parents.  Maybe it's a sibling.  Maybe a close friend.  And have an open conversation about how you are really feeling.  Don't live in denial.  Don't try to play tough guy.  Don't just blow it off.  Deal with the pain.  Face the hurt.  And begin to process what is going on in your heart. 

It's why God gave us community.  It's why he said it is not good for man to be alone.  We need each other.

When trust is broken, we need community. 

When trust is broken, we need to move towards each other.

When trust is broken, we need to share our hearts deepest pain.