We had a problem with the computers at work last night.\u00a0 The web conference was scheduled, people from all over the country connected, everybody waited, but the demo site wouldn’t work.\u00a0 After 30 minutes of trying, we cancelled the conference.\u00a0 Wasted time, for a bunch of people.\u00a0 The search for who\/what to blame began almost immediately.<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 I work\u00a0with some very nice people.\u00a0 We all make mistakes and for the most part, are very forgiving of each other.\u00a0 Nevertheless, when something goes wrong, the typical (and probably proper) response is to look for who \/ what caused it, presumably so the same mistake will not be made again.\u00a0 Which, in a strange way brings us to\u00a0Haiti and Pat Robertson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr. Robertson\u00a0says the\u00a0earthquake in Haiti was their own fault, caused (or at least allowed)\u00a0by\u00a0God as punishment for a deal they made with the devil.\u00a0 While the\u00a0vast majority would\u00a0believe Mr. Robertson to be\u00a0crazy, at least for saying it, I believe many would in a strange way agree with him.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t mean the “deal with the devil” part.\u00a0 I mean the “caused by God” part.<\/p>\n
You see, when something bad happens, we all want to blame somebody.\u00a0 Remember Hurricane Katrina?\u00a0 Now the earthquake in Haiti.\u00a0 For something this catastrophic and unavoidable, there is no one left to blame but God.\u00a0 So, many do.\u00a0 Which brings me to something I have been thinking about lately.\u00a0 The relationship of faith and forgiveness.<\/p>\n
Check out Luke chapter 17.\u00a0 Jesus tells the disciples they must always forgive when asked, no matter how often they are wronged.\u00a0 To which the disciples strangely reply “Increase our faith.”\u00a0\u00a0 They didn’t ask “How do we forgive?”\u00a0 or “Increase our patience with our brothers.”\u00a0\u00a0 They\u00a0said, “Increase our faith.” \u00a0<\/p>\n
There is something about faith and forgiveness that goes together.\u00a0 Maybe it takes faith to forgive, or be forgiven.\u00a0 Or maybe it takes forgiveness to have faith?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I don’t know all the answers.\u00a0 I’m still\u00a0thinking on this one.\u00a0\u00a0I do believe where you put faith and forgiveness together,\u00a0blame is not even in the picture.\u00a0 The Devil does plenty of finger pointing.\u00a0 He points at our sin.\u00a0 He points at other’s mistakes.\u00a0 When bad things happen, he even points at God.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, ask what questions you may.\u00a0\u00a0 Point your finger if you must.\u00a0 But when you are through looking for fault, look in faith to God.\u00a0\u00a0He has a finger too and no matter what happens, it only points in one direction.\u00a0 Look with your heart and you’ll see Him forever pointing . . . to the cross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We had a problem with the computers at work last night.\u00a0 The web conference was scheduled, people from all over the country connected, everybody waited, but the demo site wouldn’t work.\u00a0 After 30 minutes of trying, we cancelled the conference.\u00a0 Wasted time, for a bunch of people.\u00a0 The search for who\/what to blame began almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}