Lord's Supper

Yesterday at church, we had the Lord's Supper. I didn't participate. I have never not participated in the Lord's Supper. But I couldn't. Jesus tells us that to partake of the Lord's supper, we don't need to have enmity in our hearts towards another person, and right now, I do have some issues with some people at church. We've had some issues at church, where people got mad at the pastor and left the church in anger because he wouldn't leave. Whether it was time for him to leave or not is between him and God, and he may have stayed too long or he may have left too early. There's no way this side of heaven to know that, but these people hurt the church by leaving in their anger and saying nasty things about our church in the community.

Now that our preacher is gone, they have decided to come back, and it's almost like they expect that they will be welcomed back like nothing happened. I haven't been able to do that. In trying to hurt the preacher (which they did), they also hurt the church, which means they hurt me and the rest of us who didn't leave during that time. I see them every Sunday, and it takes nothing short of God's amazing grace to keep me from snubbing my nose at them. I haven't forgiven them yet, though I know I need to. I keep praying about it, but it's so hard to let God have control. I guess I feel like if I forgive them, they've "won." But, in reality, if I forgive them, I win because that's what Jesus did, and look who is the Victor in that situation!

We need to clear the air; we need to get everything on the table; we need to start healing. But we haven't done any of that. It seems almost like we're just supposed to shove everything under the rug and forget about it. I keep hearing that it happens "in every church" and I just want to say, "I don't care if it happens everywhere. It doesn't need to happen here!"

In Matthew 18, guidelines are layed out as to how to resolve your differences. We aren't following that if we simply never talk about it. And while these people who got mad at the preacher didn't follow the Matthew 18 model either, I don't want to be like that. For our church to grow, we have to clear the air.

But back to the Lord's supper, this is why I didn't take it yesterday. Nobody probably even noticed, and that's fine with me, but my black heart knew better than to pretend everything is okay when everything is not. Only God can right the wrongs that have happened, and I pray that He will do it soon. I can only hope that everyone else involved is okay with God taking control of the situation and allowing Him to heal His church.