I’ll be traveling and taking some vacation time through November 15th, so Purposed worKING will be revisiting some earlier posts until then…

“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person.” 

When we show up at a meeting or a presentation and we take stock of the people in the room it is always a more difficult moment if we look around the room and there are people there who we either have some unfinished business, or worse yet, there is someone there who we have a problem with that is unresolved. It can be felt in the air. If we know that one of those people are going to be there, even before we go into the meeting or presentation, it can really throw us off and give us angst. It begs the question why we ever let ourselves get into the situation where we either harbor ill feelings or we allow someone to feel the same about us. I was in a meeting the other day when someone else said something to which I disagreed. I tried to say to her, as politely as possible that I was in disagreement and that I thought we should think of things in a different way. She didn’t say anything back, but it was clear that she did not like my disagreeing with her. We went through that section of the meeting and at the break I could just feel the coldness in the air. I got up and went over to her at the other side of the room to say that if I had overstated my disagreement, that I apologize. In a moment, the air was clear and we were back to the good place we were at the beginning of the meeting. If I hadn’t done that, then I am sure that the rough patch would have gotten rougher and the bad feelings would have not gotten better.

It’s a principle we should all follow in that we shouldn’t let any bad feelings be harbored or grow and its nothing new as we can read in Matthew; “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person.” We may not be going to the altar today, but we are always stepping in the footsteps of our Lord and He does not want us to be the ones who allow for others to have something against us. We are to be the ones to step forward, reconcile, forgive and move on. We are to be the ones who feel the responsibility to clear the air. As you start this week, is there any clearing of the air that you need to do?

Reference: Matthew 5:23-24 (New Living Testament)