March 29, 2010
Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
By Beth DeCristofaro
Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever, or make void your covenant. Do not take away your mercy from us… Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy. Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord.” (Daniel 18:34-35, 42-43)
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30)
Piety
My eyes are ever upon the LORD, who frees my feet from the snare. Look upon me, have pity on me, for I am alone and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart; bring me out of my distress. (Psalm 25:15-17)
Study
An ongoing spiritual struggle for me is that I tend to hold onto resentments for things “someone has done to me.” At least, that’s what my wounded ego tells me – that he/she has upset me or conned me or let me down or owes me a debt and that I am now the victim and justifiably hurt, injured. I can seethe for a long time, my inner dialogue continuously in a self-righteous loop of just how injured I am and how much the other person owes me…
I place myself and that other person in the prison of my hurt emotions. It causes not only a breech between us but also unease, distress within me. It causes a breech in my friendship with Christ. But, of course, I am completely justified. I will hold her/him locked up in my bitterness until repaid in full…
Azariah didn’t bother with the litany of wrongs done to him as he stood in the fire. No, he simply prayed for deliverance and glorified God in whom (against all hope) he had confidence. Sounds easy for one who has faith, right? The stingy servant, likewise, knew how to petition for clemency. Of course his was a false petition in which he knew how to manipulate; he had no intention of passing on forgiveness or compassion.
Between the reading in Daniel and the passage from Matthew we have strong stories of faith, forgiveness and turning one’s life over to God’s directing love. It gives me hope that I don’t have to stay in the fire. Nor do I have to be locked up in a cell of my own making; God can deliver me. The turning over my control to God is an ongoing, dare I say, day after day effort for me. But to be out of the hands of the torturers or outside the white hot furnace of my own seething is really what I want.
Action
What are those actions which, when I truly take a look at myself, are caused by my own imprisonment within myself through resentments, fears, inadequacies, self-righteousness, rigidity, the need to be right, the desire to be top dog, or other infections of the spirit? Our emotions are not bad in themselves. It is what I choose to do with them that cause brokenness and isolation.
During this Lenten season can I identify and leave these snares, these jailors, along the desert path as I travel toward God? Can I forgive debts just as God forgives my debts each and every day?
