Wednesday, April 2, 2025
“Reconcile With Someone”
For many of us who are participating in these Daily Challenges for Lent, today’s Challenge will be the most difficult. However, there’s one part that’s easy about it: writing.
Yes, writing the devotion for this Challenge is super easy because all of us know what we need to do, yet few of us will actually accomplish it. It’s tragic, for sure. And don’t be led astray by my admittance of this difficulty as being my excuse for not reconciling with someone. Even pastors have issues. In fact, sometimes, we have lots of issues that need reconciliation.
It’s peculiar. Each year, while preparing the Lenten Calendar several weeks before the beginning of the Season, the author has the option to leave this one out. It’s my most difficult challenge, and I can easily avoid it by not including it each year. The problem is that I know God wants me to do it differently. God urges me forward in reconciliation, not because I have to, but because God needs me to grow in faith and understanding.
Part of the problem with reconciling with others is the admittance of wrong. As we discussed a couple of days ago in the Daily Challenge to forgive another person, this Challenge of reconciliation may also include some admittance of fault before another person accepts us. But even then, if we think the other person is going to place demands on us before we are accepted, that’s not what God desires. In fact, God is the one who matters most in all of it. If I’m doing what God needs me to do, then I can be at peace knowing I’m not responsible for another person’s response. In other words, when I approach them, their response is their own responsibility. If they do not receive me in the manner that God wants them to, then the burden is on them, not me. So, in a way, a movement towards reconciliation removes the burden I carry in the situation.
Let’s not get hung up on this issue. We need to reconcile with someone. Some of us have lots of people with whom to reconcile, but don’t try to tackle the world. Pick one and run with it. Pray and pray some more, then follow God’s lead. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a best friend back. Maybe we’ll get a family member back. Maybe we’ll discover there was never a problem in the first place, or, just maybe, we’ll find that the other person has already forgiven us.
Today’s Lenten Challenge is to reconcile with someone! Let’s get to it!
“I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.” (Ephesians 4:1b-3, The Message)
