Sheila Walsh on Unforgiveness

as I'm sure every one of you would agree storms are around us every day most of us on any given day are somewhere on the continuum between everyday chaos and crisis everyday chaos like you can't find your car keys or the dog ate your shoe - a genuine crisis and maybe even at the moment you think you're either feeling a storm approaching and maybe you're in the middle of a storm or just kind of reeling in the aftermath of a storm they're just a part of life when I finished writing in the book the subtitle is really important to me because it's one thing to say the storm inside we can all say yeah that that's true but what I wanted to say in the subtitle was trade the chaos of what you feel for the truth of who you are because if we allow ourselves to be like to navigate our whole journey by just what we feel then we're gonna get shipwrecked what I truly believe is as feelings alone can lead us to shipwreck but God's truth is like a lighthouse steering us through the fiercest storm to safety in this session together I want to look at an issue that I honestly believe is crippling the body of Christ and that is unforgiveness I read an interesting quote the other day by CS Lewis he said this in mere christianity he said everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive when I first came to America as a 25 year old musician from Scotland with my band I initially just opened for an American singer and guitar player called Phil kegui we did 60 tours 60 cities across America in Scotland if you did four cities you pretty well covered the country but if so it was quite an eye-opener and then I came back a year later just to do my own tour with my own band and we had a tour manager who set everything up and it was a very successful - it was our some God really blessed lots of kids came lots of kids got saved but when we got to the end of the tour this tour manager took all the money and left he didn't pay the sound guy he didn't pay the lighting people and he didn't pay my band who were all young married guys with kids who'd given up a month of their life and I remember confronting him and saying you know I wouldn't use his real name but saying Tom how could you do this and he said well what are you gonna do sue me I'll just file for bankruptcy and I'll start up again tomorrow in a new name I couldn't I struggle with that how could somebody who claimed to be a believer do that and what I actually had to do was I had to fly back to London where I lived at that time and I sold my home so that I could simply pay the guys who had worked for me for a month because I couldn't have these men go back to their wives and children and say not only were we away for a month but we you know there's there's no money and I struggled with that for a while I was angry I was disappointed I was frustrated and then at one point the Lord said to me Sheila you're really gonna have to let this go don't allow this man to take this money I want you to give it to me as an offering so after some struggle in some debate with the Lord that's what I did well interestingly enough about four years later I was speaking at a conference of musicians held in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado every year and I'm walking along it's a beautiful day and I suddenly see this guy walking toward me and all the stuff that I thought I had laid down I felt all rise to the surface and I was kind of horrified by it and the Lord spoke so clearly to me and said this Sheila you brought the debt to me you never brought the debtor and I realized that I had forgiven the money I had never forgiven the person and it was interesting because two things happen simultaneously he saw me and turned and ran and at that moment was the moment that God was really speaking to me and I actually fell to my knees just in this beautiful filled air I fell to my knees and and I asked God you know help me here Lord and move that moment from just forgiving the offense to actually taking the offender to Christ and it was interesting because I noticed when I got up something was really bothering my knee and I realized that I had been kneeling when I was praying on a little stone and I picked that stone up and I've kept it ever since as a reminder he who is with us without sin may cast the first stone might be something you might want to do just pick up a little stone doesn't have to be anything signo I don't need to carry a boulder around with you just a little stone to remind you about forgiveness the truth honestly is if we don't forgive were not free we are the one that's held in bondage I saw that powerfully with my own son Christian I could read him like a book if he said a good day at school it's written all over his face if he's a bad day he wears it like sackcloth and ashes and this one particular day when I picked him up I could tell he's had a terrible day and he's a boy so he will not talk immediately so I took him to a place that's kind of like a healing place for us we went to the ice cream parlor and I said to him afterwards so do you want to talk and he said yes I do mom you'll never believe what happened today and he told me about one of his friends his closest friend really who had done something knocked over a whole bunch of things in class and a teacher got mad and his friend said well it was Christian who did it and he said mom at the breaker said him you need to tell the teacher I didn't do it and he says my friend said no I don't I'm not gonna tell her and I don't care so Christian said that's it mom he is no longer my friend he is off my prayer list Wow dude that's serious well that night after supper I said to Christian there's something you and I need to do before you go to bed and I said remember that big big bag of flour mom bought and he said yes I said I want you to go and get that we're gonna need it so he said okay so he went he got this big bag of flour and I said the you and I are going for a walk across the golf course we have an adventure so he said okay so he started carrying this heavy bag of flour and it kept saying mom this is too heavy it's too heavy none like Christian we're gonna need it we're going to need it and eventually after a few moments he just kind of sank onto the grass they said mom I can't carry this anymore and I said Tim Christian that's what it looks like when you won't forgive your friends probably been sleeping for 20 minutes you're the one that's left carrying the load and he said but mom it's not fair and I said I know that darlin fear does not live here but Jesus does fear does not live here but Jesus does and I told my son then something that I passionately believe see when I was a young Christian woman I used to think I had to forgive to be a good Christian it's almost like God said what nice one here's another brownie point for you I don't believe that anymore I believe forgiveness is God's gift to us to live in a world that's not fair forgiveness is God's gift to us to live in a world that's not fair now let me just see this about that forgiveness does not see that what happened to you is okay forgiveness does not mean that you stay in a hurtful situation and allow someone to continue hurting you forgiveness is not burying your head in the sand forgiveness is not denying the pain here's what forgiveness is I believe forgiveness is an act of defiance against everything that makes sense to us and a total act of obedience to the kingdom of God and here's a wonderful thing do you know that the enemy has nothing zero nothing in his arsenal to combat forgiveness when you choose to forgive there's nothing the enemy can say because it makes no sense I was talking recently with a woman we were on a flight together and I was trying to see if she was one those women that like to talk or just wanted to be in her book but she looks over to me at one point and she had a tear in her eye and I said to her are you okay can I get you something she said oh I'm just I'm so tired of my life and I said well what happened and she began to tell me that our husband had left her and got off with a woman who was her friend in the ultimate act of betrayal they'd been married for a long time and she considered this woman one of our dearest friends and the pain was so fresh and so raw so I kind of assumed it happened recently do you know what happened 22 years before she was stuck she was stuck in a place because if you don't forgive you remain trapped in that place with what that person did you ultimately given them power over you someone described it this way when you refuse to forgive it's like drinking poison waiting for the other person to die forgiveness is unique in its depth to the kingdom of God because everything within us thinks no I can't do that because there's something in us if you're like me we want justice it's easier if somebody feels sorry it's so much easier to forgive and you want well Lord I'll forgive them could you at least give them like a boil somewhere uncomfortable something I'll make it hard to sit down for chance but you know what I think I really believed ladies God is calling us to grow up as his daughters you know so often with we've weighed ourselves against the world and what magazines and movies and TVs they tell us here's what your life should look like here's what a successful woman looks like and here's what you know nobody looks like we need to redefine our lives by what the Word of God says about us that true beauty comes from someone who is living their life and obedience to the kingdom of God here's some things I've learned about forgiveness number one ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind anyone that you've not forgiven even as I was writing this chapter in the book I thought I'm gonna take a break and I went for a pedicure and I'm sitting with my feet in this basin of nice walk soapy water and the Lord brought this name to mind I thought what that was years ago and it's just this compulsion you need to forgive and I'm like well that was over 20 years ago and if you remember Lord I actually asked told the person you know that I wanted us to make things right and they were not interested you notice have the Holy Spirit is and so I just felt this she let's just do this so I thought well I don't even know how to contact him too so I look to see if they were on Facebook and they were so I sent them a direct message and I just and the Lord says clearly do not say anything about what they did just on your own part so I just texted this person I said hey it's been a long time I just wanted to ask you to forgive me for you know what happened between us and they wrote back almost immediately and said hey nice to hear from you I don't remember what happened between us but you know what was interesting for me was I hear I was sitting with my feet in a basin of water and I'd forgotten what Christ said about how to wash other people's feet don't wait for somebody else to be sorry don't wait for things to be fair don't wait for things to be right be the one who will step up and live and act like a daughter of the king and then three excuse me begin a daily discipline of forgiveness don't wait till you feel like it because you'll probably never feel like it that's what I've discovered start where you are with one person who had hurt me really deeply when I was in my 30s I thought okay well I'll do it Lord button here was my first prayer here's what it sounded like dear Lord I forgive them but you know I don't mean it but I began day after day to drag my will in line with the Word of God and as days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months I found myself praying for that person with tears rolling down my face we never have a clue what's going on inside the life of someone else so don't wait to feel like it just begin the daily discipline and number four keep a small stone in your pocket as a reminder that we have been forgiven much so it's our privilege to forgive Lord Jesus you cried out from the cross Father forgive them for they know not what they do Lord would you give us a spirit of obedience to line our hearts up with you and to forgive freely as we have been freely forgiven in Jesus name Amen [Applause]

Channel: 100huntley

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Keywords: truthtogo, huntleystreet, may-23-14, HS9637, 100huntley, Christian, Sheila Walsh, Unforgiveness, forgiveness, debt, offense, sin, stone, burden, heavy, hurt

Id: noeEeIJAFbs

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Fri May 23 2014