R&R Lists

On the Sunday morning of October 14^th I raised the issue of reconciliation or the lack thereof in our lives. I did so from the pulpit in wrestling with II Corinthians 5.17-21. This particular New Testament passage suggests that claiming to follow Jesus is a joke... unless reconciliation shows up as the main sign of transformation in our lives.

I went so far as to challenge those who managed to stay awake until the end of the sermon to pick one broken relationship in their lives and pray for glimpse of a simple step that could lead to reconciliation there. They didn’t even need to DO IT at first… simply imagine what a step toward restoration would look like.

Monday morning brought another idea: in my own life I realized it might be important to do more than pick one tense relationship. More telling for me would be a list of ALL the broken or strained relationships in my life… noting each person’s name and then ranking the level of brokenness on a scale of 1 – 5.

This numeric ranking would mean something like…

5 - absolute abhorrence, fear, or active hatred

4 – inability to be in the same room

3 – active avoidance

2 – strain that both of you are aware of

1 – superficial friendliness on my part masking underlying dislike or struggle

I consider myself to be decent in the area of relationships and generally easy to get along with, yet the more I thought, the more I realized there were too many names on my R&R list. As the old maxim goes: "Physician, heal thyself." Apparently I've got some work to do.