"Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, then come and present your offering." (Matthew 5: 23-24, NAS)
Yesterday, we once again put electronic collars on both our dogs. Now before all you dog lovers crucify me, we only use the vibrate and tone. Never the shock! We put them on because since the death of our other Boston Terrier, there has been some real confusion as to who was in charge of the pack. Both dogs were wrestling, going out the door first by shoving past us, and wandering off while not responding to our calls to "come". Since we live in a rural area with most roads posted at 55 mph and people are hunting all year round, the latter was VERY dangerous. So the decision was made to invest once again in electronic collars.
When we placed the first collar on our Lab, it was set at "0". It took some fiddling around, but we soon found a vibration that she could feel and responded too. Since the first one was set on "0", my husband assumed that the one we put on our Boston Terrier was also set on "0".
Our Boston needed to go out to handle his "business" so I took him out with the assumption that my husband had adjusted his collar while I was out with the Lab. The Boston began to wander away into the field above our house and refused to come back so I "buzzed" him. Unbeknowst to both me and my husband was that the second collar was set at "100"!
The poor little guy was scared to death by the teeth-rattling vibration that exploded around his neck. He crawled all the way back to me with his head low and ears back just looking up at me with those big, sad brown eyes. Truthfully, I wanted to cry. Not in a million years would I have intentionally done that to my little Buddy.
For most of the afternoon, he stayed away from me and stayed under my husband's feet. He actually wanted to be protected from me! And no matter where he went in the house, he crawled or slunk to get there in an attempt to be invisible to me.
At first I tried to tell myself I didn't care. After all, I did MEAN to hurt his spirit. It was just an accident and accidents happen even in the human world. He could just get over it. (sound familiar?)
Then I sat down to write yesterday's blog. I had serious writer's block as I watched my poor little Buddy crawl around the den trying to be invisible. I HAD to make this right.
I called him over and began to pet him beneath his chin at the same time raising his head up at about 2:00 pm. Slowly he began to move past what had happened at noon yesterday. I kept on "apologizing" by raising up his head while petting him but it was 7:00 pm before all was forgiven and he climbed up in his usual spot next to me in my recliner.
Once I stopped focusing on how I had not deliberately done anything wrong and placed my focus on the little dog that I had hurt, the words started to come to me to write my blog. I had left my "offering" at the altar and been reconciled to my doggie "brother".
The same goes for people. While my Dad was dying with cancer, we had a HORRIBLE fight on the phone on a Saturday night. Even though it was my belief that Dad had started it, the ugly words I had spoken bothered me all night. I kept telling myself it wasn't my fault and he should apologize to ME!
Sunday came and I got ready for church with this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, You know the one, when God is really convicting you of a sin. I made it through Sunday School and then told my husband that I just couldn't sit through church. I had to go home and make things right. And I did. We apologized to each other and never fought again.
See, God didn't want my "offering" of praise and worship in church. He wanted me to be obedient to His Word in Matthew 5 and be reconciled. Sunday night, with a clear conscience, I was once again able to offer God my praise and worship.
We all hurt people without meaning to. And we can generally see the results, if we will just allow ourselves to really look at the other person. They may be like me and my Boston Terrier, slinking around trying to avoid you. Or like my Dad and just not speaking to you. Either way, God says it doesn't matter if you "meant to". All that matters is that your brother (or dog) has something against you and you- yes, YOU- need to make it right before you can offer yourself to the Lord.
When conflicts happen- and they always do- someone has to be first to say "I'm sorry." God says that person needs to be you.
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