It's 5:00 AM two days before Christmas.  I woke up wide awake an hour ago.  I have tried everything I know of to go back to sleep.  Counted sheep, prayed, make my "to do" list for the rest of the week.  Now, I am writing a blog. (Which happens to be on my to do list.)

I love to sleep, and I hate waking up in the middle of the night and missing sleep.  It makes me cranky in ways I will not bore you with.  At the same time, its just so happens that during these occasionally "wake up" sessions, God speaks to me in ways I cannot hear Him throughout the day.  I have yet to understand everything I know about this special time in the wee hours of the morning that God speaks to me in the richest ways, but this morning, I am pretty sure I understood Him quite well.

You see, we are in Texas right now with all my family and all of Gretchen's family.   In fact, as I write this I am sitting on the edge of a "full size" bed.  I am 6 foot 3 inches.  I don't fit well on a short narrow bed. We have a King sized bed at home and I have lots of room to roam throughout the night.  But not for the next four nights.  Instead, my wife and I will be snuggling in ways we haven't snuggled since we were able to afford a King sized bed.

Along with the short and narrow bed, comes all the family that we will see in the next 6 days. Both my parents and my wife's parents are divorced.  This makes for at least four stops over a 6 day period.  Throw in aunts, uncles, cousins, childhood friends, old church members, and our 85 year old neighbor that used to live next door to us, and you can imagine how crazy life will be the week of Christmas.  Luckily, my in laws are great and love having us stay with them.

Anyway, here's my point. My family and Gretchen's family are not all on speaking terms right now.  I k now, sounds crazy, a family not getting along around the holidays.  But this week, there is more drama between our two families than in all of Shakespeare's plays.  And its because of my role in this drama, that God has woken me up on Christmas Eve's Eve.  Tonight, I will be spending some time with one family member that I still am very upset with.  I won't bore you with all the details, but what I will tell you is that I feel pretty confident in my own right to be mad at this person. (Don't we all)  Enter God stage left. His question to me this morning was pretty clear, " Oh really Tommy, you do?  You feel like you have the market cornered on justifiable anger? Your subscription to the resentment and bitterness magazine contains no personal fault of any kind.?"  I think we all know the answer to all of those questions.

The truth is, for the past month, I have convinced myself, and some close friends around me, that I have done nothing wrong in the present conflict.  The other party is to blame, and I am nothing but an innocent bystander. (enter violin music here)  Needless to say, God has put me on notice concerning this pious thought, and shown me the era of my ways.  In other words, He has convicted the snot out of me.

Matthew 18 is one of my favorite chapters, and also one of the hardest to follow. Jesus is approached by the disciples and asked one of the most selfish questions in the gospels.  "Jesus, who among us will be the greatest in your kingdom?"  Jesus then begins a full discourse on answering that question.  He hits them with parable of the lost sheep, the unmerciful servant, and approaching heaven like a "little child."  He also says this:

15"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

Jesus then finishes the chapter with the following verses:

32 "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

 35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Ouch!!  Needless to say that I felt lower than a skunks belly under an eighteen wheeler on an icy road. Hearing God say to me, "this is how my heavenly Father will treat you unless you forgive your brother from the heart." was both painful and exciting. Why?  Because its just what my unforgiving heart needed to hear.  I needed to hear, "what your doing is wrong. What they are doing and have done is wrong too.  Either way, your both wrong, now get over it so I can bless you both before Christmas is over and your back to work separated for another year." 

You know, I have found that most of the time, it is comforting for my children to hear their father say, "I love you, but your wrong." This was one of those moments for me.  My "wrongness" had nothing to do with what happened a month ago. My "wrongness" had to do with how I have acted since I felt I was wronged a month ago.  You see, God has held me accountable for what I have done just as much as He will hold anyone else accountable for what I felt was done to me.  Either way, wrong is wrong and family is a gift from God, and I needed to stop asking God, "who is more important to you," and do whatever it took to make things write so we both could celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

Now comes the hard part, carrying out the task God has given me.  It won't be easy, and it won't be fun.  But it will be freeing for my soul and peaceful for my spirit.  I think it will be for the family member I am upset with as well.  Don't let the enemy rob you of your Christmas.  Bite the bullet, get that chip off your shoulder, stop doing whatever it is your doing, and just admit it, your both wrong. Somehow, someway, your both wrong.  Then let God heal you so you can truly celebrate the Savior this Christmas.

God bless, and have a Merry Christmas.

tommy