What A Friend We Have In Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Every thing to God in prayer


My heart rejoiced in this song today. Truly it set me free without my realising it. There were some people close to me whom I felt had wronged me. People I’d considered friends who would not utter an unkind word against me. I was wrong. Human nature being what it is and these individuals being the unsaved people they are, I tried to understand it but I just couldn’t let it go. Mind you, I said I had forgiven them but in my heart I really hadn’t and it showed every time they even came close to me. I’d feel that coldness settling in and speak only when necessary or when spoken to and even then very briefly.

Unforgiveness was depressing my days and I was not even aware of it. So in my self imposed exile today I began to sing this song, I can’t say why: it was not playing on the radio and I hadn’t even heard it at the funeral yesterday but there it was in my spirit. I sang the words over and over, letting them soothe my soul and nourish my spirit. No truer friend can we have than Jesus. Instead of causing us pains He carries them for us.
That’s how I felt today. Free. And I think I smiled my first genuine smile for 2006 when I realised that once again God has done it for me. He touched when and where I needed it most. He took away the hurt so that there’s only love, His love that they need to see and I need to show.

I press toward the mark

Phil 3:13-14
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
(KJV)

The hardest thing for me to do is to forgive myself. I find it so much easier to forgive others, keeping in mind my own imperfections and God’s forgiveness of them. But forgiving my own folly seems so much more difficult. So it’s a new year and I’m going to follow my own advice and take it one day at a time. No looking back and self castigations about past failures but I’m going to move forward. God has great things in store for me. I just need to let Him have His way, have patience and His will be done.