Gentleness at work

I'm not sure how the Lord speaks to you but I know how He often speaks to me.  It's not always with incredible pomp and circumstance or like standing on the side of the street as the parade passes by with incredible noise and color.  More often then not, the Lord just gently nudges and whispers for me.  There was a time in my life, though,  when I thought I would hear the Lord speak and I felt it necessary to test whether or not it was really the Lord.  Anymore, I find myself not having to test as much because his gentle nudges seem to always reflect what his Word has already said.  I find myself often just releasing a heavy sigh, and whispering to myself, "Yes, Lord.  I know.  I missed that one."

The point in my telling you this is because I had one of the those "whisper / nudge moments" this last week.  A friend of mine, who is also a pastor, was going through a real difficult physical ailment.  You could tell that this ailment was really beginning to take a toll on the emotions.  Of course being the good pastor that I try to be I told my friend that I would be in prayer and praying specifically for a quick recovery.  Little did I know that this is when the Lord was about to strike.  I knew people from my friends former church and I asked if there was anyone that I could contact to let them know of this situation.  Silence.

I guess I should back up some and give you a little bit of history, especially leading up to this point.  You see, this pastor left this church pretty bloodied and battered.  I'm sure this pastor would personally confess that mistakes were made, and if there were a "rewind" button it would be pushed in order to back up to a place and time where the forward momentum of the avalanche could be stopped.  Unfortunately, no such button, no such remote.  So when I asked about whether the physical circumstances could be shared with others, I'm sure what the pastor saw was volumes of flashing difficult memories.

Then I heard the whisper, I felt the nudge - "Isn't it a shame that we would rather carry around personal baggage and discontent all for the sake of keeping the fuels of bitterness active and kindled.  Don't you think, whether blameless or not, we would do everything in our power to make sure that relationships were reconciled?"  You might respond to a message like this by saying - "Well, I would but it wouldn't change them!"  To which I could see a counter response - "Why does the activity of another person matter to you?  You're not carrying their baggage, you're carrying your own, and it looks kind of heavy."  Hmmm.  "So, Lord what you are saying is, whether I am right or wrong I should be the person to initiate good will to someone I don't like very much?"  Silence.