Sometimes we refuse to be amazing.

“Go and be amazing … Be amazing today, my friend … Discover your amazing.”

Anyone who has read anything I’ve written over the past couple of years has seen those phrases.  Are you tired of it yet? 

Please answer that question kindly. I’m easily wounded.

Why do I keep bringing it up, reminding you over and over … and over and over again?

Because your Amazing is not a goal or a checkbox.  It’s not a place you arrive and say, “Been there, done that.”

It’s a lifelong journey toward a mindset/worldview that permeates everything you do. It’s a lens through which you view your past, your present, and your future.

It’s possible, but it doesn’t happen automatically.  It happens through daily choices.

And sometimes we absolutely, positively, unequivocally refuse to see life through that lens.

The ways we refuse are varied, but there is one particular way that is as common as bug guts on a car windshield.

Sometimes we refuse to be amazing because it requires us to let go of offenses.  To put it more commonly, we refuse to forgive.

And we have legitimate reasons for it.  The offense was so heinous forgiveness is not possible.  Justice requires consequences.  They showed no remorse.  They didn’t ask for forgiveness. To offer forgiveness minimizes the damage done. They simply don’t deserve to be forgiven. It wouldn’t be right to let them “get away with it.”

But, here’s the problem: when we think we have a right to hold our grudges and offenses tightly, we don’t realize that we are not holding them; they are holding us.  We are the ones in bondage. Our lives are the ones being dominated and consumed.

In Ted Dekker’s book The Way of Love he writes, “Forgiving … isn’t letting someone off the hook but letting go of the idea they deserve to be put on the hook in the first place.”

I think this may be what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2)

Jesus wasn’t saying that we should not evaluate the truth of a matter or come to a conclusion about whether something is right or wrong.  There was never a hint of moral relativism in the words of Jesus.

He was saying that a culture of judgment—where people are not content until THEIR sense of justice has been satisfied—results in people being in bondage to the weight of offense and brokenness that is too heavy a burden to be carried.

The hymn-writer Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) wrote, “Jesus, keep me near the cross—there a precious fountain, free to all, a healing stream flows from Calvary’s mountain.”

Free to all.

Our lives matter so much to God, that he made a way possible—through Jesus—for us to be healed from the wounds of offense that are too heavy for us to carry.

Part of being amazing is to release our right to have OUR sense of justice satisfied and to step into God’s healing stream. But, He never pushes us in. He simply invites us.

Be amazing today, my friend.