When the usher noticed a man stretched across three seats in the movie theater, he walked over and whispered "Sorry sir, but you are allowed only one seat." The man moaned but didn't budge. "Sir," the usher said more loudly, "if you don't move, I'll have to call the manager." The man moaned again but stayed where he was. The usher left and returned with the manager, who, after several attempts at dislodging the fellow, called the police. The cop looked at the reclining man and said, "All right, what's your name, joker?" "Joe", he mumbled. "And where are you from, Joe?" Joe responds painfully, "The balcony!"
Things aren't always as they appear. Have you ever been misjudged by appearances? I have. You can be doing everything right and honorably and someone will walk onto the scene in the middle or end of your "This is My Life episode" and view it from their incomplete perspective. Sometimes I feel like my 6 Word Memoir would be called, "A Cross-Stitched Life Viewed From The Underside". Don't you sometimes feel the same way? Like all the public can see is all the knots and mistakes, but rarely the tapestry God is stitching together for good? Probably my favorite love quote is from 1st Corinthians: "Love always believes the best". Today, you and I will have several opportunities to judge a scene and the actors in it. Just remember, we don't know the whole story. We only know a part. And the part we know is just a short clip from the entire movie.
I'm praying over you right now that you will keep a discerning spirit about you and use wisdom as you speak into and about others lives; think the best, not the worst, about every person today. You never know - you may be able to rescue someone who has just "fallen from the balcony".
Love Never Fails, Leeanna Trosclair Porter
Forgiveness does not mean you can have hope that one day all the past will be gone or that the terrible thing done to you will never have happened. That's Hollywood, not reality. It happened. That's a fact that cannot be undone no matter how much time passes you by. Bitterness and unforgiveness don't have the power to change your past painful experiences for the better. Forgiveness is realizing that God alone earned the right to blot out sin and change your future. Lay down your right to be right. What good purpose does that serve you or anyone you love? Instead of saying, "I can't forgive him", say the truth instead: "I choose to be bitter. I choose to remain unforgiven for my own sin". Why would I choose to do that? Because I believe the lie that holding unforgiveness somehow only hurts my offender and not me. I am self deceived. Put out of your life all these things: bad feelings about other people, anger, temper, loud talk, bad talk which hurts other people, and bad feelings which hurt other people. You must be kind to each other. Think of the other person. Forgive other people just as God forgave you because of Christ’s death on the cross. Your heavenly Father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if you refuse to forgive them, he will not forgive you. Unforgiveness won't determine their future with Christ but it will determine yours. JESUS said our Father will forgive us "just as" we have forgiven others. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even when we have rebelled against him. He is faithful and just to forgive us when we sin. Confess your sin of unforgiveness and he will forgive you and remember your sin no more.
(Eph 4:31-32; Matt 6:13-15)
I'm praying for you right now and I hear God singing over you His songs of deliverance.
❤️Love Never FAILS, Leeanna Trosclair Porter