Our Pastor was teaching about forgiveness and an analogy of
a harbor used in this teaching was an opportunity for God to show me something
about my own “harbor” (or heart).
According
to
www.definitions.net, a harbor is
a haven, or part of a body of water along
the shore deep enough for anchoring a ship and so situated with respect to
coastal features, as to provide protection from winds, waves, and currents. That's where the terminology comes from when
we talk about harboring ill will about someone.
We bring those thoughts into our “harbor” (our heart, mind and soul),
and that area is deep enough to take anchor.
We then protect those thoughts and feelings from the winds, waves and
currents of life. Soon, we have our harbors so full, we don't have enough room
to let God come in.
While I was listening to that message (it's only about the
fifth time I've listened to it!!), this is the picture God gave me. I saw my “harbor” full of boats anchored down
being protected from the raging storm.
Because the storm is so vile, other boats are trying to push their way into
my port – boats carrying resentment, hate, sorrow, pain, sadness, pride,
self-righteous, and many other things – and there were
some boats that had been there so long they had become decrepit and were no
longer seaworthy.
Because my harbor was so full (the pain is so deep), I felt
the need to share my boats with other people by filling them in on all the gory
details and asking them to pray for me.
That's the Christian thing to do, isn't it? We are to be a praying people! And those we ask to pray for us need to know
exactly HOW to pray for us, so they need to know all the details of the
situation, right? Hmmmm –
Riiigghhtttttt.
This is the picture I got from the Lord about what happens
in these situations that go on every day across the world in Christian
communities. I take one of my boats and
put it in my friend's harbor by saying, “Please pray for me – this and this and
this happened to me and so-and-so did this and that to me because they are such
blankety blanks, and furthermore, that person also did this and that and that
and this…..” You get the picture. What I'm REALLY saying is I don't want you to
pray for me, I want to justify my anger and hurt to you so you can empathize
with me and condemn the other person so I can be right. So, I start helping you fill your harbor with
junky boats for you to harbor.
Because neither one of us know how to clean out our harbors,
now there are two people with diseased hearts, souls and minds who aren't letting
God in to do the work. Now there are two
people who harbor resentment towards the people involved. If I go to yet another person and do the same
thing, then another and so on, and if they don't know how to clean out their
own harbors, their burdens become greater, their harbors get filled with junky
boats and God can't get in there, either.
Then there are three, four and more people with hearts being filled with
animosity, anger, hurt – all the things we feel. The great things, however is we now feel
better because we've just dumped a bunch of our junk on someone else which
freed up more room for other boats to come in.
And this is all in relationships with other believers, where
we often use the terminology of “will you pray for me” to justify gossip. What about our secular friends and family who
we dump on who don't know there is a way to clean out that junk? And how could they know when they see us as a
Christian doing the same thing everyone else in the world is doing. We are doing anything different - nothing to set us apart. In both instances, I see a barricade being
built at the opening of that harbor – it only lets ships full of vileness come
in but nothing can go out.
AH - I was in tears when He showed this to me! How many harbors of friends and family have I
filled with junk and am enabling that person to harbor ill will and not show
them how God can come into their lives and clean it up? That makes me sick. I repent of not cleaning up my harbor by not
going to God appropriately with the junk and I repent of helping fill someone
else’s harbor full of junk so they can't be filled with God's amazing love and
mercy.
How do we do it correctly?
We do need people to pray with and for us – we need God in the skin of
man. We need the support of others in
the body of Christ to come along and support us in times of great storms. I know if Karl and I hadn't had great Godly
friends who know how to do this stuff with us through the storms we've
experienced, I think we would have drowned in our own harbor. So how do we clean out our harbors and be
discerning enough to know if someone else is able to clean out their harbors so
we can go to them for real help?
Here is what I see a fresh, clean living harbor looking like. The mouth of that harbor is open to receive
the greatness of God’s ship filled with mercy, love, justice (real justice),
righteousness, respect, faithfulness, etc.
Sometimes, because of the raging storm, the other boats of despair,
anger, hurt, etc must push into the harbor, but we deal with them right then
and there.
We may have to ask a healthy harbor person for prayer, but
it's done similar to this: “Jane, I have
been really struggling with anger at a particular person. I'm so angry because I've been unjustly
accused of something, I've had unreasonable demands put upon me and I'm not
dealing with it very well. Will you pray
with me so I can see what God has for me in this situation? Will you pray with me that God will reveal
His will and shower me with forgiveness for that person because I really don't
have it in me right now?”
The POWER is released. We have not placed our anger boat in someone
else's harbor to make their waters sick and unhealthy but we've opened the
mouth of our own harbor and let the Power of God come in and push that boat of
anger back out to sea. It may try to
come back in during a storm, but if we know how to appropriately deal with it,
it won't be able to stay long.
In fact, what about when someone tries to put their boat of
junk in our harbor? Once we've cleaned
ours up, we notice them trying to put it there and we can just say no. Here's an example. Someone comes to us and starts gossiping
about someone or blaming someone about what's going on in their lives. They've just put their junky boats in my
harbor and I have to decide what to do with it.
I can go back to my old ways of taking it and harboring it by letting it
set anchor (and sometimes, because our harbors are so full, we don't even know
when someone has done that to us!!!) OR
we do it the correct way. We say, “hey –
wait a minute. I don't know what they've
got going on in their lives and I don't understand where they are coming from,
but let's talk about you instead. You
can't do anything about them but you can do something about you. Let me pray
that God will show you how to handle this difficult situation. How he can bring healing to your heart. Let's go to scripture and see what He says
about how to deal with this.”
By doing this, we are helping them deal with their hearts – helping
them clean up their harbor and see the boats of resentment and anger, etc. and
allow God in to help clean it up.
Again, The POWER!!!
You do that a couple of times with people and they get a knowing about
you. They will either never gossip
around you again because you won’t take on their junk and revel in it with them
or they will come to you because they really do want truth. They really do want to progress. Another thing, they will trust you. They will know you are a rock and that no
matter what, they know you won't be stabbing them in the back with gossip. They know your harbor is cleaned out and that
you know how to do it, so they come to you for real help. Again, the POWER!
Thank you Jesus for our safe harbors. I choose to clean mine up. I choose to remove all those junky boats full
of resentments and things NOT of you. I
choose to keep the mouth of that harbor open to you and your boats of
forgiveness, love, mercy, happiness. I
want my harbor to be appealing to others, to be a refuge for others – one to be
counted on. Thank you! Praise your Holy Name.
This website and its content is copyright of OverallSolution - © OverallSolution 2012. All rights reserved.
