An Unusual Man

It's been an interesting Christmas season.  This time of year is usually a financially difficult time for me.  As a handyman, most people don't want you in their house tearing things up from Thanksgiving through the New Years.  I've tried thinking of many ways to boost my income during this time of year, but only the Lord can do it as wells as He's done it this year.  Needless to say, I've put in long hours, and made enough money to carry me through to the New Year, with a short waiting list of people needing me to do work for them.

Strangely, as I've gone through this past year, I've been working with a local businessman who's shown me what it's like to have the mind of Christ.  He isn't family, but I care for him as if he were.  I believe he was sent by God to help me through this dry season, and to teach me how to have the mind of Christ. To many in the community I live in, he is a rich man.  People have abused his wealth, because he has a good heart.  At the same time, it is obvious he would like to lash out, like any of us would, at those who've hurt him.  It would be even easier to succumb to the power in wealth, and lock up the bowels of compassion.  He could cash out at any time, and leave a great deal of people writhing in the dust.  BUT. . . . he doesn't.  I've often stepped into his place of business and found him and his wife praying.  They could be bitter, bitter people enveloped in hate, and wrath, but they aren't.

The mind of Christ is to accept the persecution, the abuse, the falsehoods, the outright lies, and love those who've hurt you.  You see, it is the power to forgive, and even reconcile, that makes us 'supernatural.'   Christ gave us that power.  It is human nature to dominate, control, and abuse.  Christ gives us the ability to live above the the natural tendencies.  When we are born again, and his presence fill our hearts, we find ourselves able to live as he lived.  Not in some legalistic abstinence from life, but embracing the people who fail, knowing full well that we ourselves have failed.  We overlook the evil others do to us, knowing that it is God who owns vengeance.  His retribution is more sure, but even in that, he gave us, His children a way to be like him.  In forgiving others, we remove the need for him to exact vengeance.  He can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that we have become like Him.  Extending mercy to those whom mercy is not due, giving grace to those who don't merit it, and loving all men, because they are made in HIS likeness.  Christ extended healing to those who were steeped in sin, gave forgiveness to those who abused him, and prayed for mercy for those who murdered him as he hung upon the cross.  That is the mind I want.