Relational redemption.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link. 

We may hope for many things this advent season.  As we meet with family and friends, the potential for relational tensions arise. Perhaps many of us hope for relational healing. Through Christ and His Spirit we are increasingly being released from sin into love for each other. Sometimes however, harmony with one another seems impossible.

The North Pole, Woodland Park, CO

Sin, selfish desires, and our own way of seeing things can impair our view of each other. We feel the tension of our differences and it’s difficult to see the goodness in our diversity. We see each other like my daughter and her friend in this mirror at The North Pole. It’s a distorted view which can lead to judgement, division, and disharmony.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Philippians 2:3-4

God meant for us to see and appreciate each other’s unique ways of thinking and doing, both our weaknesses and giftedness, and for us to work together in harmony. I ache for mutual understanding, for all to be seen and understood and given the grace we need to grow in love. Sometimes the distortion we see is real, but often I believe we misunderstand each other looking through our own lenses.

 ^“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 New International Version

The promise is that one day we will not only see our Lord face to face and know Him as He is, but we will also see each other as He intended. Won’t it be beautiful?

Father, in this advent season as we spend time with others, help us look beyond our own lenses and see people as You see them, a reflection, if only a dim one, of Your own image. Amen.

Text and Picture Copyright Jennifer Brukiewa